The Reluctant Mage

by Karen Miller

  She wanted to feel as excited as Charis, but she couldn’t. Poor little chickens. This was their woodland, their home. And in she’d blundered and because she was hungry, because she was so sick of rabbit, she’d taken her unwanted mishmash of Olken and Doranen magics and killed them.

  Charis sighed. “Honestly, Deenie. You do know, don’t you, that those chickens were always going to die some day? Either they’d drop dead from old age or a fox was going to get them. Does it really matter they died so we can eat them?”

  “I’m not a fox,” she said, with a sharp upwards look. “If I am going to kill things then I think I should care. Because if I don’t care, Charis, if I just romp willy-nilly through the countryside killing things and not caring, well—”

  “Deenie, we’ve talked about this,” said Charis, and slumped onto her heels. “You don’t have to kill them with magic. You don’t have to kill them at all. Why won’t you let me wring their necks? Or hit them with something?”

  “You know why, Charis,” she muttered. “My way’s kinder. They don’t have time to be frighted and they don’t feel a thing.”

  “But you do,” said Charis, frowning. “And then you gloom about it afterwards.”

  Yes, she did. She tried not to, but she did.

  Charis flicked her a glance. “I wish you’d talk to me. I know I’ll never properly understand your magic or how the reef’s changed you, but I’d like to try. I’d like to help.”

  “I know, Charis,” she said. “The trouble is, you can’t.”

  No-one can. I’m different, and I hate it, and there’s nothing to be done.

  She poked a finger at the pears. “If we’re going to spend the night in that village, why did you bother to bring these back?”

  Startled, distracted—just as she’d intended—Charis blinked. “I don’t know. I s’pose I wanted to surprise you. Are you hungry?”

  “Silly question.”

  They were always hungry. Walking from dawn to dusk, day after day, a bit of rabbit here, a mouthful of berries there, once or twice some hazelnuts, half-ruined by maggots. After a lifetime of well-stocked kitchens and bakeries and sweetmeat stalls, never a second thought about where a meal would come from, scrounging in the wilderness was a frightening thing. Not even the hardships of Lur and its failing weather had prepared them for only ever being one twist of bad luck away from an empty belly.

  “Deenie, I’ve been thinking,” Charis said slowly. “I reckon we should stay hereabouts a day or so. The thing is, you see, I’m tired. I don’t know what I thought this would be like, but I never thought…”

  Reaching across the chickens and pears, Deenie took her friend’s grimy hand. “No, we never thought. We were so worried for Rafe—I was so worried for Lur, for Da—and then Mama died and—Charis, I’m sorry. You came because you believed me when I said I could find Rafel. Save everyone.” She looked at the quiet woodland surrounding them. “And now, well, you said it. We’re lost.”

  “Yes,” said Charis, sniffing. “We’re lost. But Deenie, we’re lost with chickens. Things could always be worse.”

  Taken aback, Deenie stared at her madcap friend. And then she laughed. “You’re right. They could. So let’s eat a pear, then you can show me this village.”

  Probably it was foolish of them not to press on. But they really were tired. What harm could it do to snatch a day or two of respite? To sleep out of the damp night air, on dry ground? Surely there was no harm in that. And perhaps, if she got just a little more rest, she might be able to find Rafel again.

  If I can sit quietly for a time, if I’m not so weary, so hungry…

  They ate all the pears. Then, sticky with juice, they picked up their bits and pieces and the dead chickens and trudged through the rest of the woodland until the trees thinned. And there it was, the abandoned village, as overgrown and mournful as the rest of this odd land. Charis set about plucking and cleaning their dinner, a messy task. She was welcome to it.

  “Deenie, you choose us a cottage,” she said, then blew chicken-down off the end of her nose. “Use your fancy magic to make sure it’s clean. No spiders. And then—” Her face lit up with a thought. “Deenie, the well. We can have a hot bath!”

  Deenie looked at her. “Out of a tiddy tin bucket, Charis? Really? With no soap?”

  “Oh, stop being a killjoy,” Charis retorted. “We’ll make do. We can soak a shirt and scrub ourselves with it. It’s better than nothing.” Her nose wrinkled. “It’s better than stinking. We haven’t had a wash since we fell in the river! And we’ll be able to get the last of the salt out of our hair!”

  Because not even their river-dunking had washed it clean entirely. “That’s true.”

  “Then smile!” said Charis. “Things are looking up!”

  The afternoon dwindled as they saw to their many tasks. At last, once there was a clean cottage to call home and all three chickens were roasting, jointed and threaded onto water-soaked green branches balanced over a banked fire, they took turns with their ridiculous tin-bucket bath. Hoping to find a second bucket they’d scoured the tiny village’s abandoned twelve cottages, but not a stick of furniture or one more bucket remained. Nothing to tell them who had lived here or why they’d left.

  Still. The inconvenience and painful slowness of the process couldn’t dim their pleasure at feeling warm water on their skin and sluicing through their sticky hair. With a sopping, squashed up shirt they scrubbed themselves free of dried sweat and days of grime. And once they were as clean as a bath without soap could make them, and dressed in their least manky shirts and leggings, they cleaned the rest of their clothes as best they could and draped them over low-hanging pear tree branches to dry.

  By this time the sun was fast sliding towards dusk and the chicken was cooked. After sharing the pieces between them they added more wood to the fire, stirring its flames to greater leaping. Light and warmth billowed as they devoured their meal.

  “I’ve been thinking again,” said Charis, frowning at her greasy fingers. “We should go on a chicken hunt tomorrow. There must be more hiding somewhere close. We could—what? Deenie? What’s wrong?”

  She couldn’t answer. Could scarcely breathe, the stab of blight shafting through her was so cruelly sharp. Her belly heaved and a half-eaten piece of chicken slipped from her loosened grasp.

  “Deenie!” Charis reached out, her face in the firelight stark with alarm. “For Barl’s sake, what is it? What can you sense? Deenie—”

  And then thrumming through the gathering twilight, the distant sound of hoof beats and shouting. A crashing through the woodland. Another dreadful wave of blight.

  Grabbing Charis by the wrist, Deenie staggered to her feet. “We have to hide. Hurry, Charis. Run!”

  They stumbled the short distance from their fire to the cottage. Tumbled through the open space where its front door had been, gasping.

  “Charis, get down,” Deenie hissed, dragging her to the dirt floor. “And don’t move. Don’t make a sound. No matter what you see or hear.”

  “But—”

  She slapped a hand across Charis’s open mouth. Held it there even as Charis tried to prise her fingers free. More shouting, louder now, almost on top of them. Hooves thudding hard and fast on damp ground. Charis tried to bite her fingers, so she snatched her hand away.

  And then a terrible shriek, a high-pitched animal squeal of agony. A man’s deep voice, shouting and desperate.

  “Ride on! Ride on! Ride, spirit take you!”

  Mounted horses burst out of the woodland, galloping and frenzied. Deenie peered round the door frame and saw terrified faces and blood and terror as their riders swerved and zigzagged, fleeing—fleeing—

  Charis screamed.

  Her mage-sense was screaming too, howling inside her. Dizzy with it, sickened, Deenie fell against the cottage’s doorway and watched four beasts burst out of the woods. Crimson hide, blue hide, black and sludgy grey. Horns and tails and tusks and talons. The beasts she’d been dreaming, the
beasts Darran once told her of in his tales, people who’d been wickedly changed. The blight in them wasn’t ancient, like the blight in Dragonteeth Reef. It was minted new and bright, fresh as a flower.

  Another horrible horse scream. She whipped her head round and saw another beast attacking from the other direction. The horses and their riders were pinned between them, nowhere to run. The horse that screamed went down, plunging, half of its light brown neck torn away. Soaked in the hot blood, its rider was tossed from the saddle and the beast that attacked them pounced. Not even the man’s drawn sword could save him.

  She couldn’t count how many men and horses were tangled in this chaos. All she could see was blood and slaughter. Moaning, she clawed at the doorway and pulled herself to her feet. Felt Charis’s fingers plucking at her leg.

  “Deenie—Deenie, no, Deenie, what are you—”

  The beasts weren’t rabbits. They weren’t chickens. They weren’t anything born of nature. But they lived, so they could die.

  Another horse went down screaming, its rider screaming with it as he was crushed beneath its bulk. Almost blinded with tears, Deenie stepped out of the cottage. Opened her mage-sense to the ravening beasts. The blight in them burned her, set her racing blood on fire. She didn’t care. She couldn’t care. It was only pain, she wasn’t dying. Those poor men were dying and she had the power to save them.

  Softly exhaling, she closed her eyes.

  Images in crimson and black danced behind her eyelids. Outlines of tails and tusks and horns. Pulsing deep within each beast a dark heart of blighted magic, the poison that had twisted people into mindless, murderous things.

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You can be at peace now. I hope.

  An incredulous shout. Not Charis. A man. “Girl! Girl! What are you doing, girl? Run!”

  Opening her eyes she saw a beast charging towards her, firelit and savage. No mercy in it. Nothing human left at all. Was she frighted? Maybe. Mostly she felt oddly calm.

  Her hand came up, fingers spread. “Die now,” she told it. “Beast, drop dead.”

  She felt a surge in her mage-sense. Felt the magic light her blood. The beast dropped in its running. It dropped dead at her feet.

  The remaining beasts rampaged about the abandoned village. She killed every one of them and then she folded to the ground.

  “Deenie!”

  That was Charis. Huddled on the cold grass, no strength in her to talk or stand, she looked up as Charis crouched beside her.

  “Deenie, are you all right? How did you do that?”

  “How d’you think?” she said weakly. “Really, they’re not much bigger than chickens.”

  Charis almost laughed, and then she gasped again.

  “Girl,” said the man who’d shouted. He was off his horse and striding towards them, a sword in one hand. He had long, dark red hair tied back from his face and green-gold eyes and she knew him. This impatient stranger was the man from her dreams. The sound of his voice was like a clear bell, tolling.

  Oh. It’s you.

  Behind him, his surviving companions on their horses gathered close in the near-dark of late twilight, swords raised and ready. Nine of them, all silent. All staring. What was the matter? Had they never seen a girl?

  The dead beast that had run at her was a lump on the grass, firelight flickering warmly in its dead, open eyes. She felt a pain in her, somewhere. It had been human before it was blighted. Someone should grieve.

  “Girl,” the man with dark red hair said again, and halted directly before her. His lean face was stubbled a dark reddish gold, and the same flickering firelight danced up and down the length of his blade. “Who are you? Where have you come from?” He jerked his head at the dead beast. “And how did you do that?”

  Charis stared up at him, perplexed. “More gibberish? Please, Deenie, tell me you understand him.”

  The man’s companions stirred, uneasy, hearing Charis speak. The man glanced at them, his hand raised, then turned back. “It’s strange, your tongue is. You’re not from Vharne, you aren’t.”

  Vharne. Was that the name of this land? Vharne. She’d never heard of it. “Yes, Charis,” she said softly. “He wants to know who we are and where we’re from.”

  Charis shivered. “That reef magic. Deenie…” Then she scowled at the man. “We mustn’t tell him anything. Who’s to say he’s a friend?”

  But he was a friend. She felt it in her bones, even if she couldn’t explain how or why. “It’s all right, Charis. He’s not going to hurt us.”

  “You don’t know that! He could run you through in the blink of an eye. Deenie, I swear—”

  “Charis, hush.” With a cross look at her, Deenie stood. The man with the dark red hair, who was so familiar though they’d never once met, took a wary step back. She pressed a hand to her chest. “Deenie. My name is Deenie.”

  He frowned. “Deenie.”

  “That’s right.” She touched her fingers to his chest. “You?”

  Knocking her hand aside, he took a second wary backwards step and raised his sword. He wasn’t handsome, not precisely, but there was something astonishing in his face. A strength. A steadfastness. Beneath that, a deep sorrow. It tugged at her soul and pounded the blood hard and fast in her veins.

  Goose Martin, Gardenia. Remember Goose?

  And she did. Of course she did. She was very fond of Goose. But she’d dreamed this man. That had to mean something. Something out of the ordinary.

  And when I look at him, I feel… I feel…

  Staring into his green-gold eyes, she felt her pulse leap. “I’m Deenie,” she whispered. “Please, won’t you tell me your name?”

  Quizzical, he touched his chest. “My name, you want?”

  She nodded. Trust me. Please, trust me. “Yes.”

  “My name.” He looked to his men, then at the dead beast, then back at her. His jaw tightened. “Ewen.”

  “Ewen.” She turned to Charis. “His name’s Ewen.”

  “So?” said Charis, still suspicious. “Should I turn a cartwheel?” Cautiously she got to her feet, one eye on the men with the swords. “Deenie, what’s going on? Why are you so willing to trust him?”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Try.”

  Deenie bit her lip. She’s really not going to like this. “I dreamed him. Once before we left Lur, and again a few nights ago.”

  “Oh. Really?” said Charis, unimpressed. “And when were you going to mention that?”

  “I wasn’t. I thought it was nonsense. I had no idea we’d stumble across him in the wilderness.” She shook her head. “It’s very peculiar.”

  “Peculiar?” Charis snorted. “That’s a word for it. Deenie, who are these men? What are they doing here? And why are you dreaming about them?”

  “Not them. Him. And honestly, Charis, I don’t know. But—”

  She broke off, then, because the man Ewen was retreating, returning to his companions. They gathered close around him, talking in low voices, and she couldn’t hear them.

  “Deenie, those—those things,” said Charis. She was staring at the dead beast slumped on the grass. “Am I going mad or do they—”

  “You’re not going mad, no,” she said grimly. “They’re what Da and Mama and your papa fought, the day Morg died. It was a beast like this that took his leg.”

  “You’re saying that was a person?” Charis whispered, horrified. “All those creatures were people? Oh, how awful. And you—Deenie—”

  Such a dear friend, she was. “I’m all right, Charis,” she said, suddenly tired. “I had to stop them. They’d have killed every last one of us, elsewise.”

  “I know. But still.”

  Yes. But still. Here was another memory that would haunt her to the grave.

  Shivering, Charis hugged herself. “I don’t understand, though. Morg made the beasts Papa fought in Dorana. So if they’re of his making, and he’s dead, then who made these ones? Has someone else learned his magic?”

  De
enie stared at the dead beast. She could still feel the blight in it, that foul, corrosive touch. It stirred the reef’s darkness inside her. Made her feel sick and faint.

  It’s the same, Da. In you, in me, in the reef—and in this beast. It’s the same.

  “No, Charis. I don’t think so.”

  “But that has to be what happened,” said Charis. “Because otherwise it means—” Her eyes widened. “Oh, Deenie. Deenie, no.”

  She thought of her dreams. Rafel on that unknown balcony, feeling somehow not like Rafel. The way he’d felt smothered. Silenced. Wrapped in darkness. The way he’d… disappeared.

  It broke her heart to say it. “I think it’s yes, Charis. I think it’s Morg. He’s not dead.”

  “But he has to be,” Charis whispered. “Your da killed him. King Gar died so he’d die. Deenie, he has to be dead!”

  Staring at the beast, she shook her head. “No. We want him to be dead. It’s not the same thing.”

  “But—but—if he’s alive—and I don’t see how he can be, but if he is, then who’s going to stop him, Deenie? Us?”

  She felt her chin tilt. “And Rafe. ’Cause we are going to find him, Charis, and when we find him he’ll join the fight. You’ll see.”

  Charis’s face was vivid with anguish. Tears like little snail tracks trailed down her cheeks. Deenie opened her mouth to say something brave, but sharply raised voices distracted her. Whatever Ewen and his companions were talking of, things were getting heated.

  “No, Ibbie,” said Ewen, glaring. “And that’s a fool thing to say, that is.”