The Reluctant Mage

by Karen Miller

  What haven’t you told me, mage girl? What do you know of Morg that I don’t?

  If he asked her, she’d lie to him. He could see that in her too. But if he was patient… if he gave her time…

  I’m a wheedler, Tavin says. I’m a man who sits in the king’s seat and waits and listens and coaxes secrets like mice from their little hidey holes.

  And if he did coax her secrets? What difference would it make? A mage girl and her brother—if he lived, if she could find him—they’d never stand against a sorcerer like Morg.

  It’s spinning dreams, I am. Tav would clout me so hard.

  But even so… “We’re both travelling north. Travel together, we can.”

  The blaze in her died down to hot embers. “Except Charis and I don’t have horses.”

  “You’re not heavy,” he said, careless. “Ride with me, you can. One of my barracks men will take Charis. You’re right about Vharne. Full of wanderers and beasts, it is. Not safe even for mages. And this is my land, it is. I won’t get us lost here, or see us starve or die of thirst.”

  “And beyond Vharne?”

  “It’s a long time we’ve stayed inside our borders,” he admitted. “But we still know more of the lands beyond them than you do.”

  Lips pinched, Deenie looked at her friend. Charis grimaced. “He’s right about that much.”

  “I know,” said Deenie. “All right. Ewen, we’ll travel with you, at least as far as it helps me find Rafe. But even though you’re the king’s man and Vharne is your kingdom, it doesn’t mean we’re bound to you. If we need to, if Rafe needs us to, we’ll leave you behind and make our own way.”

  He had to laugh. “And that means what, you say? You say I’m the king’s man and I’ve no authority to bind you?”

  “Ewen.” She met his eyes without fear. “I’m a mage. Can you bind me? Truly?”

  He went cold. Small and slight she was, and there was pain in her that he could feel, that pushed him to her…

  But it’s a sorcerer she is, even when she calls herself a mage.

  “So now I see you,” he said, and spat on the dirt floor. “Take a mislike to me and in a blink I’m a beast, is it? I’m your slave, wearing chains forged from your magic? It’s a fool, I am, to think of trusting you. What a blessing there’s a man who knows me who’s not here to see it. For I’d be breaking his brave heart giving comfort to you.”

  As tears brimmed in Deenie’s eyes, the other girl Charis leapt up. “And isn’t that just like a man,” she said, scornful, “to have his bubble pride pricked because he can’t trample roughshod over a woman. Noddyhead. She only means she’ll follow her conscience and do the right thing. That’s all Deenie ever does. Even when it’s killing her, she does the right thing!”

  He glared at the girl, his gaze slitted. “It’s a sorcerer, you are. Sorcerers lie.”

  “No, noddyhead, I’m a mage!” said Charis, a spitfire now. “And believe me, not a scary one. I call glimfire and grow flowers and lure rabbits into the pot. That’s what I do.” She pointed. “But Deenie kills beasts! And she feels them coming. She feels your awful wanderers, too. You prattle about us being safer with you? Trust me, Captain, it’s you who’s safer with us!”

  Scowling, resentful, he turned to silent Deenie. “It’s true I can’t bind you. But you can bind yourself, girl, when it makes sense to be guided. I’ll be your captain then, I will. For riding safely. For knowing Vharne where you don’t. For knowing how to reach the borders and where to cross them without a man being lost or hurt. These things are my conscience, I say. Respect that, can you?”

  Deenie nodded, quiet and small, that blazing hatred died down. “Yes, Ewen, I can. I will. I promise.”

  He rubbed a hand across his face.

  Tav would knock me turtle for trusting her. But Tav says it’s a clever man who trusts the voice in his heart. And the voice in my heart says trust her, it does.

  “You dreamed me, girl?” He shook his head. “Happier, I’ll be, if you don’t do it again.”

  Her lips twitched. “I’ll do my best.”

  She looked so weary. So did Charis, though Charis doubtless wearied herself with scolding more than anything.

  “Get some sleep, you should,” he said. “We ride early. You should put out your little light.”

  “The glimfire?” Deenie looked up at it. “You don’t need it?”

  “Not for greasing leathers, I don’t.”

  “Oh. Yes. My leathers.” Her cheeks pinked. “That’s a kind thing for you to do, Ewen.”

  “Girl,” he said, looking to ruffle her. “It’s a kind man I am.”

  And that made both mages huff and flounce and lie down with their backs to him.

  In the darkness, with Charis snoring, he greased Deenie’s leathers by sure touch. Thought of his questions, and their answers, and all the things they hadn’t said. Those thoughts made him grimace. But he’d made his choice, hadn’t he? It was too late to turn back.

  And spirit alone knows where that choice will lead us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Caged behind his own eyes, Rafel watched Morg remake the world. And though he tried so hard that he thought he’d tear his soul to strips and tatters, he couldn’t break free and he couldn’t crush the sorcerer who’d stolen his body.

  I thought Arlin would help me. I’m a sinkin’ fool.

  It was hard to remember now why he’d trusted Arlin Garrick. Why he’d believed what he saw and heard in that brief, desperate moment when he’d managed to speak as himself. Lord Garrick was a Doranen, and the last good Doranen had died fighting Morg. One taste of power and the man who’d sworn to help him had shown his true face.

  How could I trust him, when I’ve known him my whole life?

  Sometimes it was hard to know who he hated most: Morg, Arlin… or himself.

  Life in his prison of bones was strange. Sometimes he heard and saw everything. Sometimes Morg smothered him, putting him to sleep. There was always a panic after he woke. Until he worked out how much time had passed, and what Morg had done while he’d been kept unaware.

  And then, once he knew, came the grief—and the rage.

  Da, if only you’d trusted me. If only you hadn’t kept my power a bloody secret! If you hadn’t, I could’ve stopped this. I could’ve kept Morg out.

  But he tried not to think on that. Morg liked to eavesdrop. He fed on pain. He was fat with other people’s suffering.

  Every time I fratch at Da, he laughs.

  And there were other things he didn’t dare think on, not even while Morg was preoccupied, like he was now. It wasn’t safe. Not for him. Not for anyone.

  He’d been so hopeful, about Arlin, about them joining hands to defeat Morg. But all that hope was gone now. Shame. Grief. Despair. They’d devoured it.

  Caged behind his own eyes, he felt the confines of his prison. Every time Morg swallowed another piece of himself, it meant less room for him. He was being crowded out of his own body, pressed and pushed into a corner, growing smaller and smaller.

  He says he’s lost some power, but he don’t feel weak to me. Sink me bloody sideways, if he’s weak now then what’ll it be like when he’s found what’s left of himself and swallowed it?

  Morg liked to torment him with that, too. Everyone in Lur thought Da had killed the sorcerer, but all he’d done was throw glimlight on a shadow. Da and his friend the king, they’d got it all wrong.

  I wish I knew how Da was. I wish I knew if—

  But that was something else he shouldn’t think on. Not only because Morg liked it, but because the fear he felt for Da threatened to break him to pieces, when he was too close to breaking already. When he was scrabbling and scrabbling like a crab in a bucket.

  Him and Deenie, when they were spratlings, having a looksee down on the coast. Splashing in the rock pools with Da and Mama wading nearby, hand in hand and laughing. Watching the sails on the fishing smacks full-bellied in the wind. Stirring the little waves with his magic when his pa
rents’ backs were turned. And Deenie with her eyes wide, feeling what he did.

  No, you sinkin’ fool! Don’t think about Deenie.

  Morg was up in his eyrie, locked inside the mansion’s attic with his stolen eyes closed and his sharp, cruel mind drifting. He spent time here every day, calling for his scattered bits and pieces… honing his growing power… making his plans…

  And there’s not a sinkin’ thing I can do but watch him. I can’t fight him. I can’t hurt him. I can’t—

  “That’s right,” said Morg, smiling. “You can’t escape.”

  Shattering pain blasted through him. Morg could do that, hurt his prisoner without hurting himself. He’d done it all the time to Sarle Baden. The Doranen mage had fought Morg as hard as he could, but he’d lost.

  Morg sighed. “Of course he lost, Rafel. Everyone loses. But Sarle was an idiot, so of course he paid the price.”

  Sometimes, at odd moments, he thought he could hear Baden screaming.

  “But you still don’t believe that, do you, Rafel?” said Morg, musing. “Even now, after so long, part of you refuses to accept your defeat. What a sad thing you are. How pitifully defiant.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Rafel!” Morg snapped, and hurt him again.

  Pitifully defiant, a scrabbling crab in a bucket, he froze and tucked himself as small as he could.

  Hurt me all you like, you sinkin’ blowfish. I don’t have to answer to you.

  Piqued, Morg took them outside, in the mood to soothe himself by savouring his last night in the mansion. Come the morning he and his ragtag court would take up residence in his new palace.

  The sun was sinking, glowing dark gold in an eggshell blue sky. It glittered on the distant spires of reborn Elvado. Knowing what its rebirth meant, Rafel tried to look away.

  Morg wouldn’t let him.

  “Deny me my due, would you?” the sorcerer said, mage-claws sinking into his mind. “What a pustuled little toad you are, Rafel. What an insect. What a grub. You stink of jealousy, did you know that? Even Arlin can smell it. Did you think you could hide?”

  I ain’t jealous, Morg. Sink me bloody sideways if I want what you’ve got.

  “Sink you? Sink you? Olken, I’ll—”

  And then Goose shambled out of the cobwebbed stables and into the slowly dusking light.

  “Goose!” said Morg, brilliant with a vicious delight. “You idiot. You useless lump of wood. Come here.”

  Rafel felt a different kind of pain blast through his captured mind.

  Run, Goose. For pity’s sake, wake up to yourself and run.

  But Goose wasn’t Goose any more. Carrying a piece of Morg had fuddled him. If it had stayed in him longer than a day it would’ve killed him, for sure, but that small, sundered piece of sorcerer had swiftly jumped to Sarle Baden. For a while he’d thought his friend was getting better. But then Goose saw Arlin murder Fernel Pintte, and his half-mended mind broke again.

  Come on, Goose-egg, you can do it. Run!

  Uncertainly obedient, Goose shambled to Morg and stopped. Rapped knuckles to his forehead and stared at him, anxious.

  “Dolt,” said Morg, took a handful of Goose’s hair and twisted, buckling his knees and putting him on the grass.

  Goose’s eyes stretched wide with shock. “Rafe?”

  There was nothing he could do. Morg sailed him like a boat.

  Sink it, Goose. Sink it. I wish you’d bloody died.

  “Ha,” said Morg, smiling. “He’ll wish he’d died too—won’t you, my plump little Goose?”

  The pain and terror in Goose’s face as Morg hurt him made Rafel kick and scream and batter the bars of his cage. Morg hardly felt him. He just laughed and pushed him away.

  But not so far away he couldn’t see Goose pay the price for his pride.

  At last—and it took too long—Morg grew bored. Watching Goose crawl back to the stables, weeping, he wiped his hands down the front of his blue velvet tunic.

  “When will you learn, Rafel?” he said softly, his voice icily intimate. “I won’t be defied. I won’t be denied. That treacherous whore I loved more than life killed herself rather than face my displeasure. How can it be you learned nothing from that?”

  Shivering in the darkness somewhere deep behind his eyes, hearing again Goose’s pitiful gasping, Rafel felt his rage burn.

  I learned, you sinkin’ bastard. And you know what Barl taught me? She taught me you can be stopped. Not by me, maybe. It’s too late for me, I reckon. But there’s someone who can do it. You ain’t invincible yet.

  “Well, little toad,” said Morg, staring at distant, glittering Elvado. “You’re right about one thing.” Sighing, he set his inner world on fire. “It really is too late for you.”

  Standing with Morg on the Hall of Knowledge’s highest balcony, Arlin stared across the remade city of Elvado. The city of beauty, of wonders, that he’d helped raise out of its ashes and into a glorious, wondrous rebirth.

  I should have seen it burn a second time. I should’ve lit the flames myself.

  Beside him, the smiling sorcerer stroked blunt, ringed fingers down the front of his crimson tunic. Were he a cat he’d be purring, so sleekly self-satisfied he was.

  “And so the past becomes the present. What was now is, and will be forever.” He laughed. “Come, Arlin. Confess the truth. You never thought it could be done.”

  “Master, I never doubted you could do it,” he said, bowing. “To doubt you is to doubt the sun. But myself? Myself I doubt always.”

  “Little mage,” said Morg. “Little lord. Don’t judge yourself so harshly.”

  He sounded almost affectionate. But that was deceptive. There was an odd edge to the sorcerer this morning, a treacherous volatility. Something had irked him. Three dravas lay dead in the road behind them, smoked to stinking embers because they’d displeased their creator.

  I wonder… is it Rafel? Is he still alive? Still struggling?

  He hoped so. Like it or not, he still needed the Olken’s help.

  “Arlin? Your mind is wandering.”

  “Forgive me, Master,” he said quickly. “I’m overcome by the view.”

  Morg’s hand came to rest on his shoulder, a companionable gesture that could easily turn to pain.

  “As well you should be, Arlin,” he replied. “And by your good fortune, too. Confess this, since we are in the mood for confessions. Every last small dream you ever dreamed in Lur, that rotten kingdom of rotten fools, they are come true here in Elvado. They are come true in service to me.”

  Not only would it be foolish to deny Morg’s claim, it would make of him a liar. Morg’s unique library had glutted him with magic. And in Elvado, set free of all restraint, he had far surpassed his father, and Ain Freidin, and every Doranen mage he’d ever known.

  I have surpassed Asher and Rafel. In this place my father dreamed of, I have done more than ever I dreamed.

  Morg’s fingers tightened. “Arlin—you think because I am who and what I am, it is not in me to understand your struggle. You’re mistaken.”

  “My—struggle, Master?” It was an effort to keep his voice light, puzzled. “Master—”

  “Arlin.” Morg laughed again, but still he glittered with that dangerous edge. “I was a man, once. I loved. I lost. I lusted. I wept. I yearned for greatness. And when it seemed that greatness would be denied me, I despaired. Talent is a burden, Lord Garrick. And the man who bears its burden is heavy-hearted indeed—for it makes him a man apart. He does not see the world as others see it. He cannot walk in it as other, lesser men must walk. Arlin, little mage, it takes courage to be great. To step off the path lesser men demand that you follow and forge your own way in the world. But if you are to be true to yourself then you must forge it. Greatness cannot be served else.”

  “Master…” He cleared his throat, discomfited. How can he be so evil and so right? “You sound like my father.”

  “You forget, Arlin,” Morg said, his lips curving in dry amusement. �
��Though I wear the face of a young man I am indeed old enough to be your father. And your grandfather, and your great-grandfather, and so on and so on. Tell me—” Letting his hand drop, he shifted a little on the balcony. “Are you accustomed yet to seeing this face? To seeing Morg look at you with Rafel’s eyes?”

  What was this now? A trick question? A genuine enquiry? Was the sorcerer merely amusing himself, or did he have a deeper meaning? Trying to read him was exhausting. And terrifying. And hard.

  “Master—” Arlin moistened his lips, buying a moment’s time. “I don’t give the question much thought. To me, that face stopped being Rafel’s when you—when you—”

  “Stole it?” said Morg, delicate. “Or—usurped it, perhaps?”

  “Won it.”

  “Won it?” Intrigued, Morg rolled the words over his tongue. “Won it. Yes. I like that, Arlin. You’re right, I won it. There was a battle, I was triumphant, and Rafel is my prize.”

  “Exactly, Master,” he said. “Asher’s son died in the blighted lands. His face is yours, now. Rafel? Who is he?”

  Winter was closing fast on Dorana, but there was still a little heat in the sun. Standing on this balcony, so high above the city, a chill breeze rustled their clothes and whipped their hair.

  Morg’s eyes chilled with it. “And tell me, Lord Garrick. Do you miss the son of that fisherman?”

  No need to lie now. “As one would miss an ague, Master.”

  “Or grieve?”

  “Master, I grieve his death as keenly as I grieve the fall of Barl’s Wall,” he said promptly. “Which is to say, not at all.”

  And that too was the twisted, bitter truth. For the destruction of the Wall in its roundabout way had led him here to Elvado—and here in Elvado he’d become the mage he was born to be. The glory of that was so great, sometimes he was tempted to disregard the cost, to abandon his secret resistance and let the glory take him.

  Sometimes.

  Smiling again, looking nothing like Rafel, Morg stepped to the balcony’s balustrade and stared down at Elvado’s streets far below. Mindful always of the sorcerer’s mood, Arlin stepped to his side and followed his avid gaze. What he saw stirred a tangle of feelings. Scant weeks ago those wide, mageworked thoroughfares had been empty. Desolate. Now they were cluttered with throngs of bewildered men, women and children culled from the lands Morg had once ruled and was determined to rule again.