The Reluctant Mage

by Karen Miller

  With a snap of her fingers she summoned a tiny ball of light, then blew on it so it danced across the space between them. He made himself sit still. Just as it touched his cheek, warm and soft, she vanished it.

  “Sorcery?” he said, feeling his mouth go dry.

  Another nod.

  “On me?”

  Her eyes were warm, now. Understanding.

  “Why?”

  She used her hands and fingers to mimic two ducks, quacking face to face.

  He stared at her, guessing. “You mean—so we can talk?”

  She smiled.

  She’s reading my mind now, is she? That’s sorcery, that is!

  He put aside his grease bag and her slowly suppling leathers. Then, with his sword on the floor beside him and sweat springing to his skin, he rested his hands on his knees and made his fingers stay unclenched.

  “Will it hurt?”

  She twitched her shoulders. Maybe. I don’t know.

  “If you make me a beast,” he said, heart thudding, “I’ll gut you, I will.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ewen.” She might as well have said fool.

  “And it is a fool I am, to let sorcery touch me,” he retorted. “So do it quick, girl. Before I change my mind.”

  It riled her when he called her that, but it made him feel better. Gaze narrowed with annoyance she eased herself away from the opposite wall and her sleeping friend Charis, shifting across the floor towards him ’til they were close enough to touch.

  And then she touched him.

  Her slender, callused fingers were cool on his face, and not quite confident. He could feel the tremor in them. She closed her eyes, hiding from him, then whispered under her breath in a tongue different from her own. A shiver ran through her. Ran through him a heartbeat later. He felt a flooding warmth. Oddly, it reminded him of a spirit path. And then he was startled by an unfolding in his mind. Her fingers fell from his stubbled cheek. The loss of her touch hurt him. He wanted to snatch her hand back.

  “Ewen,” she whispered. “Can you understand me now?”

  His mouth fell open. Spirit, spirit, what had she done? “Girl—”

  “I swear,” she said, her thin face scrunched to a scowl. “If you call me girl one more time I shall find a spell to make your tongue fall out and then I’ll sinkin’ use it.”

  “Sorcery,” he said, hearing his voice hoarse with shock.

  “Not sorcery, Ewen. Magework. And where I come from it’s nothing to fear. I’m nothing to fear.”

  You say. “The beasts you killed. Born of magework, are they?”

  “No,” she said, so certain. “That’s sorcery. The wicked use of power.”

  He could see she believed it, but he wasn’t so easily convinced. “Magework killed those beasts, did it?”

  Shadows shifted in her eyes. “Yes,” she said, after a long silence. She was struggling, he could see it. “But I promise I won’t you hurt you or your men.”

  And I’m to believe that, am I? On your say-so, no more?

  He had to fight not to pick up his sword. “We know sorcery in Vharne, we do. It comes from the north.” His guts tightened. “From Dorana.”

  And she knew that name. He saw it stab right through her. But before he could chase that, the girl Charis stirred and sat up, yawning.

  “Deenie? What’s going on?”

  Deenie turned. “I’ve found a spell that lets him understand Olken.”

  “Really?” said Charis, prickly as a hedgehog. “Plucked it from thin air, did you?”

  Oh, she was a frisky one. He watched Deenie’s gaze drop. “No.”

  The leather-bound book was on the floor. Charis glanced at it, her eyes sharp. Suspicious. Interesting, that was.

  “And will this spell work the other way?” she demanded. “If it will, you can use it on me. I’m tired of not knowing what he’s saying to my face.”

  So Deenie used her magework on her frisky friend, who showed no fear. Should he be reassured by that? When it was done, the girl Charis looked at him. Even so thin and weary she was beautiful. But oddly, she didn’t stir him. It was Deenie who made his heart thud. Spirit save him. Was that a spell?

  “Well?” said Charis, snappish. “Don’t just sit there staring like a lummox. Say something!”

  Say something. “I want to know where Lur is, I do.”

  Charis’s eyes widened. “It worked!” Then she jutted her chin at him. “But don’t imagine that means we’re going to tell you about Lur.”

  Deenie sighed. “Charis.”

  “No, Deenie. We don’t say a word about anything important until we know who he is, and where he’s from, and what is happening in this land. It’s full of beasts and mad people. For all we know he’s mad.”

  “Charis, he’s not mad,” said Deenie, with another sigh.

  Charis sniffed. “Why? Because you dreamed him?”

  That made him blink, and forget mad people. “You dreamed me?”

  “Don’t listen to her,” said Deenie, blushing. “She’s addled. She hasn’t had enough sleep, poor thing.”

  “Deenie!” Charis poked a finger in her friend’s ribs, then turned on him. “You haven’t answered my questions.”

  He shrugged. “Answer mine first, you can.”

  “Certainly not,” the girl Charis retorted. “We’ve far more to fear than you. All you strong men with swords. You could spit us like chickens for roasting and there’s not a thing we could do to stop you.”

  He smiled, not kindly. “Deenie could kill us, she could.”

  “But she won’t,” said Charis. “Not even if you deserve it.”

  He looked to Deenie. “Why not?”

  “Because I ain’t a murderer, Ewen.”

  He pressed his back and shoulders against the wall behind him. “You say.”

  Gaze lowered to her lap, Deenie bit her lip. “Lur’s a long way from here, Ewen. It’s—”

  “Deenie!” said Charis, imploring. “Don’t.”

  “I have to, Charis. This is his home, not ours. Why should he trust us if we keep secrets?” She looked up. “Lur lies beyond the blighted lands to your south. Over the mountains.”

  He stared, disbelieving. “You travelled the blighted lands?”

  “No. They’re poison. We sailed past them, along the coast.”

  Sailed? She knew boats? “Why? To escape your own land? This Lur, it’s blighted too, is it?”

  Deenie and the girl Charis exchanged wary looks. “It wasn’t,” said Deenie. “It is now. Ewen, our kingdom is dying.”

  And that was no lie. Though why her pain should pain him… “Your king thought Vharne could help you? Why?”

  Again the girls looked at each other. “Lur’s king is dead,” said Charis.

  Was that the truth? He thought so. But it wasn’t the whole truth. And it didn’t explain how Deenie knew of Dorana.

  I’ll have that answer from her, I will.

  “Then why—”

  “We’re not here on purpose, Ewen,” said Deenie, so earnest. “We sailed up the river to find food and water, and then lost our skiff to rocks.”

  That was a lie, surely. “You sailed the Spate. Two girls.”

  Charis’s eyes glittered. “Two mages. And yes, we sailed the river. So?”

  “Two mages?” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s a beast-killer you are, like Deenie?”

  “No,” she said, not pleased to admit it. “Deenie’s the only mage like Deenie.”

  And that was interesting too, but he wasn’t about to let them see he cared. “If it wasn’t your king sent you sailing, why did you leave Lur?” A thought struck him, and he straightened. “Did a beast come to you? Are you summoned to Dorana?”

  Again, the name touched Deenie hard. It touched both of them. Then Deenie shook her head.

  “I never saw a beast before tonight, Ewen. Charis and I sailed from Lur to find my brother, Rafel. Months ago he crossed the mountains into the blighted lands, trying to find a way to help our kingdo
m. But—” Her voice was wobbling. She breathed hard, to steady it. “But something must have happened, something terrible, ’cause he never came back. So Charis and I, we’ve come to find him.”

  Her pain was real. As real as his own. He recognised her suffering like he recognised his own face in a mirror. The king. Padrig. And yet…

  “Aren’t there barracks men in Lur?” he said roughly. “What of your father? Why did he send you after your brother with only another girl for company?”

  Her breath caught. “Da lies gravely ill. He doesn’t know about Rafe, or me. Besides, Rafe’s given up for dead. Charis and I are the only ones who believe he still lives.” A second time, her voice broke. “Ewen, we have to find him. He has the power to save Lur and its people. To save Da.”

  Ah. “He’s a mage, your brother?”

  “As great as any Lur has ever seen.”

  He looked at her, brooding. Every word she’d spoken was the truth, he’d swear his sword on that. But still, there was no denying she’d told him a tale full of holes.

  “If he’s not lost in Vharne, where is he, d’you think?”

  “I don’t know, exactly,” she murmured at last. “All I can say for certain is we need to keep going north.”

  North? Chilled, he closed his fingers so they’d not reach for his blade. “How do you know that?”

  “If I try and explain, you’ll call me a liar.”

  “Explain and I’ll decide if it’s a liar you are.”

  Her jaw clenched tight, stubborn. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. I feel him, Ewen. I’ve felt him my whole life. That’s how my mage-sense works. I feel things. And since he went missing I’ve dreamed him. I’ve heard him calling me for help. He’s alone and afraid and hurting, and since I’m the only one who can save him, here I am.”

  Dreamed her brother, dreamed me… “I want to know about these dreams, I do.”

  She looked down again, hiding. “My dreams are mine, Ewen. I don’t share them.”

  “But you could share something,” said prickly Charis. “Turn and turn about, it’s only fair. What’s the matter with this land of yours? We’ve been tramping for days and days and there’s nothing out here but abandoned villages. Where are Vharne’s people? The ones who aren’t mad and rotting, I mean.”

  He felt his skin crawl. “You’ve found wanderers?”

  “If wanderers are mad people falling to bits, then yes.” Charis shuddered. “We found some. Four women.”

  Women? Not Murdo, then. But even so—“Where?” he said, urgently. “Near here?”

  “No,” said Deenie. Her eyes were dark with the memory. “Near the river.”

  Too far behind them for him to turn back and search there for the king. “What happened?”

  “They died,” said Charis, and shuddered again.

  “Died? Every one?”

  Deenie nodded, watching him closely. “They were desperately ill, Ewen. Do you know what afflicted them?”

  “Brain-rot, we call it,” he said, and wondered if she could feel his pain. Padrig. “It’s a mystery, the cause of it.”

  “Not to me,” she said. “They’re blighted, like the lands south of Vharne. Like Lur is now. It’s a kind of sorcerous infection.”

  Sorcery? Then somehow Morg was to blame. Spirit save him, he wanted not to be wrong about her, but—“How do you know?”

  She met his stare without guile, yet he’d swear she still kept secrets. “I told you. I’m a mage who feels things. I feel the blight, wherever it is. Whatever it’s touched.”

  He shook his head, unsettled. “Girl, it’s strange you are.”

  “That’s not for you to say,” Charis snapped. “And don’t think I don’t see you pushing the talk back to us, either. I’m not a noddyhead. Now, why are you and your men rampaging about in the middle of nowhere?”

  What a pity he couldn’t make her clap tongue. “I can give you an answer,” he said, shrugging. “Freeze your blood it will, but I can give it.”

  “You’d best believe our blood’s difficult to freeze,” said Charis. “We’ve lived through things you’d not dream of.”

  Deenie gave her a chiding look. “Charis.”

  The girl Charis sniffed, but said nothing else.

  Easing his shoulders against the hard wall, Ewen half-lowered his eyelids. Their whole truth they’d not give him? Well, he had secrets too and he’d keep them, for now. But some truth they should know, and in hearing it they might reveal more of themselves.

  “Your kingdom. Lur. I’ve never heard a word of it.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” said Deenie. “For hundreds of years Lur was lost to the wider world. Now it’s found again. Does that matter?”

  It might, but he’d chew the question over later, by himself. “Lost or found, did Lur ever know Morg?”

  In the deep silence that followed he heard the horses on the horse-line, shifting and stamping. He heard a hunting bird call and a fox bark, distant. He heard Charis’s quick breath. In Deenie’s eyes he saw a dreadful shifting of memories.

  “There are stories,” she said, at last. “Very old ones. He was a sorcerer, I think.”

  Ewen watched his fingers clench. “He was. Ruled over many lands, he did. Vharne was one of them.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  He thought she truly was. “He never ruled Lur?”

  “No,” she said. “Never.”

  The truth again, no question. “What saved you?”

  She shrugged. “No-one knows.”

  And there was a lie, he’d swear his life on that, he would. But to challenge her now would be to lose her, he knew it. Besides, she was a beast-killing mage. Dancing on thin ice, he was.

  “Lur was fortune-kissed,” he said, his voice low. “Ruled Vharne for centuries, he did. His sorcery helped him live more years than was natural. But in the end, he died.” He felt a stab of pain. “We thought he died. But it’s back, he is, with his beasts and his dark magic. And it’s summoned north I am to his new court in the city of Elvado. In Dorana. He wants Vharne, he does, and he’s determined to have it.”

  “You’re summoned?” said Charis, her eyebrows lifting. “Who are you to be summoned for Vharne?”

  That was something else he’d keep secret, for now. “The king’s man, I am. A captain of his barracks. He can’t travel so it’s me he’s sent.”

  Cross-legged on the cottage’s dirt floor, Deenie leaned forward. Her eyes were full of disbelief—and disgust. At him. “To give Morg your kingdom? Willingly?”

  “Willingly?”

  He couldn’t sit still for that. Braced against the wall, he pushed to his feet. Bile was rising thick and fast into his throat.

  “I’ve never been less willing, girl. But Morg sent a beast to the Vale, he did, to the king’s house. It butchered the king’s barracks men. Butchery for every soul in Vharne, it promised, unless we give Morg what he wants.”

  “You can’t fight him?”

  “How, girl? Vharne has no mages. There’s no power here to stand against sorcery.”

  Now her eyes were full of sympathy, as if she knew how it felt to be helpless like that. “Even so, there must be some way you can fight back.”

  Their only weapon was Vharne’s spirit paths, a frail straw for clutching. But he wasn’t about to trust her with them. “Easy for you to say, that is. You can kill beasts with a word.”

  His sneering hurt her. He was glad—and he was sorry.

  “Rafel will help you,” she said. “If I can find him.”

  He laughed. “One man can destroy a sorcerer, you think? One man? Girl—girl—you are—”

  “Stop calling her girl,” said Charis. “You ignorant, arrogant captain. What do you know of magework? Or Rafel! Rafe can—”

  “Don’t, Charis,” said Deenie, chiding again. Warning? It seemed so. “He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t trust magic. And why would he?” A little shiver ran through her. “After Morg?”

  “He’d under
stand if he listened instead of talking!” Charis retorted. “But he’s so busy doubting us he can’t be bothered to find out if we can help!”

  “Charis, that’s unfair,” said Deenie. “We’re sprung on him without warning. Give him some time to get used to mages wandering around his kingdom without an invitation.”

  Charis folded her arms. “I swear, if I find a spell that’ll turn you back into a mouse…”

  Ignoring her, Deenie turned to him. “Ewen, please, I know this is hard. But I’m not lying, I promise. Rafel can help. And so can I.”

  He stared down at the girl, wanting to believe that promise. Knowing it was foolish. It was a foolish hope, to think anyone could stand against Morg.

  And it’s a fool I am to think one girl and her brother can make a difference.

  He looked past her, to the floor. “That book of yours, there. It’s for magework, is it?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”

  “Use it against Morg, can you?”

  “No. Rafe can wield those magics. I can’t.”

  No? Suspicion stirred. “But you spelled me out of it, so we can talk.”

  “That spell’s different,” she said, her gaze steady. “I can’t use the rest.”

  He held out his hand. “Let me see it.”

  “Don’t,” said Charis, glaring. “It’s nothing to do with him.”

  Deenie unfolded herself from the floor and faced him, no more flinching. “I’m sorry, Ewen. If I let you have it, I’ll be breaking my word.”

  He wasn’t sure he believed her. “To your ailing father?”

  “And to my mother. She’s dead.”

  It was a new pain, he could see that. He wished he couldn’t feel it. Lost her mother, lost her brother, her father far away and dying. A bad way, she was in.

  But what is her pain to me? It’s the caretaker king of Vharne, I am. Vharne’s pain matters, not this girl’s.

  “What do you want, Deenie?” he said roughly.

  She tipped her head. “What do you want?”

  “No sorcery in Vharne! This kingdom’s choking on sorcery!”

  Stepping close, she touched her fingertips to his arm. “Then we want the same thing. I want sorcery gone from Vharne, from Lur, from every land it’s touched. I want Morg properly dead, never to rise again.”

  So small, she was, so slight and so plain—and so full of venom he had to take a step back. Her hatred was blazing. If he held out his hands he could warm them against it.