The Reluctant Mage

by Karen Miller

  Arlin’s hesitation answered her.

  Sink it, Rafe. Hold on.

  “Which books?” she demanded. “Show me. Hurry.”

  Goose watched anxiously, mumbling in the background, as Arlin pointed out the three warded books.

  “You’ll have to break their bindings where they are,” he said stiffly. “I can’t even touch them.”

  Mostly ignoring him and his grudging resentment, she hovered a fingertip above the first guarded book. An interesting binding sigil. Touch it once, receive a warning. Touch it twice and die. Morg’s distinctive magic stirred her, waking memories of smashing waterspouts, unravelling whirlpools and dropping beasts in their tracks.

  She closed her eyes.

  It’s a knot. It’s a tangle. All I have to do is tease it apart.

  Gently. Gently. This wasn’t a brute waterspout or a ravenous whirlpool. She had to kill this binding kindly, not bludgeon it to death.

  “Deenie…”

  “Clap tongue, Arlin,” she said, her voice dreamlike. “Stop buzzing in my ear.”

  Fooled by the reef changes in her, seeing her as harmless, Morg’s ward made no protest as she touched it. No protest as it died. Opening her eyes again, she watched the glowing sigil on its narrow spine fade… and fade… and disappear.

  “How did you do that?” Arlin demanded, almost ugly in his shock.

  She had no intention of explaining. “Does it matter? I did it.”

  The second book surrendered as easily as the first but the third and final book Rafel wanted her to see, it fought back. Pain burned through her body. She felt blood trickle from her tight-closed eyes, from her nose and down the back of her throat.

  Goose cried out, terrified, as at last the ward broke with a flash and a loud crack. The force of its breaking flung her into Arlin’s arms. She struggled free of him, staggering backwards until she struck a chair and sat down.

  Arlin handed her a kerchief. “For the blood.”

  She dabbed her face clean, the blight roiling through her so thickly she was afraid she’d be sick. But the nausea passed, sparing her. Looking up, she found Arlin watching her intently.

  “Deenie, how did you do that?”

  Not demanding, this time, but plaintive. Confused. As unlike Arlin Garrick as ever she’d heard.

  “It’s a long story, Arlin,” she muttered. Quivered with nerves, she took a few deep, settling breaths. “For now, we need to look at those books, and see why Rafel wanted us to have them.”

  “They’re written in Old Doranen,” said Arlin, scornful. Of course he’d not remain plaintive for long.

  “I reckoned they might be,” she said. “Will you need my help reading them?”

  Offended, he snatched up one of the unwarded books from the reading table and stalked to the nearest curtained window.

  The third unwarded book was splayed on the carpet, tossed there by the force of its unbinding. Bending to retrieve it, Deenie felt a wave of faintness wash over her.

  “I’ve been kept starved, Arlin,” she said, straightening. “I need food and drink.”

  Still scornful, Arlin sighed and stared past her at Goose. “Idiot. Kitchen.”

  And oh, how she hated him for speaking to Goose like that. But Goose didn’t seem to mind. He nodded, pleased to be noticed, she thought, and made his shambling way out of the library.

  “He has some wits left,” said Arlin, mistaking her look. “Enough to follow a simple command. If you’re lucky he’ll make it back here with half the food on the plate.”

  “Arlin, your compassion moves me to tears.”

  He raised an arrogant eyebrow. “It should. Morg wanted me to kill him.”

  And what was she s’posed to say to that?

  While she waited for Goose to return with her supper, trying not to think of Ewen and Charis hungry and thirsty in the dungeon, frighted for her, waiting to learn if she was dead or alive, she sat at the reading table and opened the third book. A thick volume bound in heavy crimson leather, dryly titled Incants for Judicial Application, the author’s name on the age-mottled frontispiece read Sarle Baden. Startled, she drew in a sharp breath.

  “What?” said Arlin, looking up from his own book. Stubbornly he refused to sit down. “Can’t read it after all? I am surprised.”

  Poxy, arrogant shit.

  Ignoring the jab, she touched her fingertips to the parchment page. “Sarle Baden’s ancestor wrote this.” She looked up. “I wonder, if we kept looking would we find a book here written by some other Arlin Garrick?”

  Arlin’s face tightened. “What’s your point?”

  “It must be difficult,” she said, almost sorry for him. “Being here. Seeing everything your people lost.”

  “Deenie,” he said, thinly smiling. “Your compassion moves me to tears.”

  Scowling, she returned to the book, which proved to be an extensive and stomach-churning collection of incants designed to punish miscreant mages for the misuse of their power. Reaching the surprisingly terse section on death penalties, she again caught her breath.

  Oh, Da. This magic’s in me already. This is how I can kill with a thought.

  “Deenie?”

  Not scornful this time. Arlin actually sounded concerned.

  “I’m all right,” she said, because she didn’t want him to know. “I’m hungry, is all. What’s keeping Goose?”

  Arlin snorted. “Goose.”

  Shoving the Baden book aside, her hands not quite steady, she opened the other one instead. Slender and hand-written, the ink spidery faint like Barl’s diary, it was a succinct compilation of powerful binding hexes. Just reading them made her mage-sense shiver.

  And then the library doors opened, and in shambled Goose with plates of food, a jug and two elegant glasses on a tray. He smiled shyly, seeing her, and clumped his broken way across the library to join her.

  Reading the judicial incants had mostly robbed her of appetite but she’d hurt his feelings if she didn’t eat. Besides, she needed the nourishment. Pouring herself a glass of strong cider, she watched him pull a second chair to the table then look anxiously at Arlin.

  “Supper, Arlin. Supper.”

  “Idiot,” said Arlin, still reading. “I’m not hungry.”

  Goose’s hurtfully changed face crumpled. “Arlin. Supper.”

  Arlin looked up, glaring. “Are you deaf now, dolt? Are your ears full of wax? I said no.”

  Shivering like a scolded child, Goose pressed his fingers against his mouth.

  “For pity’s sake, Arlin!” Deenie snapped. “Must you be so cruel?”

  A motley of emotions shifted over his face. And then he stalked to the table, flung himself into the chair Goose had fetched for him and with ill grace helped himself to bread and cold sliced duck.

  Goose nodded his approval, wounded tears forgotten.

  Staring into her glass, Deenie struggled to hide her grief. If Arlin mocked her now she wasn’t sure what would happen. But when she risked an upwards glance, she saw the grief in him, too.

  Oh, Da, he’s a strange one. I can’t begin to figure him out.

  Goose was still hovering beside the table.

  “You should eat too,” she told him, and gestured to the plate of duck. “Goose? Please, eat.”

  He looked at her, uncertain.

  “Here.” She added duck to a piece of bread and held it out. “This is yours.”

  “Deenie,” he said softly, and shattered her with a smile. “Deenie.”

  She ate the food and drank the cider, quickly, barely tasting them. Piled her crockery and Arlin’s back onto the tray, stowed the tray on the other reading table, spared a glance for Goose, slowly eating in the corner, then dusted her hands and turned back to Arlin.

  “The other book. What is it?”

  He had it open before him on the table. “It’s more a journal than a book,” he said, frowning. “A series of essays on magework by an eccentric called Novil. I think—”

  “What?” she prompte
d, as he drummed his fingers on the page. “Arlin, what?”

  “Some of Novil’s ideas. They’re uncomfortably familiar. I think Morg might’ve stolen his work at some point. He writes of expanding a mage and his mage-sense beyond the confines of the corporeal.”

  Uncomfortably familiar? That was one way of putting it. Morg’s immortality. “Well, that’s disturbing, Arlin, but I’m not sure how it helps us.”

  Instead of answering, Arlin pulled to himself the two books she’d been reading and swiftly perused them. Then he sat back in his chair, fingers drumming his knee.

  “No?” he murmured. “How terribly dim of you, Deenie. What a good thing I’m here.”

  She felt her face heat. “You can be snide or you can explain, Arlin. I doubt we’ve time for both.”

  “Think, Deenie!” he said, impatient. “Three books of magic. Binding hexes, judicial murder—and a way to pull a mage from his body.”

  She took a few moments to think it through, just to be sure she’d understood him aright. “So,” she said at last. “You want to trap Morg in his eyrie, pull him out of Rafe and execute him?”

  Smiling, Arlin clapped his hands. “Exactly. Well done.”

  It was an audacious notion, and no mistake.

  “And you think Rafe will survive it?”

  “I have no idea,” he said. “I’m not even certain it’ll work. But I am sure he won’t survive decapitation with a sword. And while that might kill Morg with him, I’m not prepared to take the chance, even if I could convince you to cut off your brother’s head.”

  Cut off Rafe’s head? No, Arlin. I don’t think so. But if I have to I’ll kill him with the Words of UnMaking.

  She hesitated. Should she tell Arlin she had that spell at her fingertips? No. Not yet. He might prefer that she use it—the perfect revenge. He might hold Ewen and Charis forfeit until she did. With Morg in a trance, he was the Lord of Elvado. And even with his bindings Arlin was a formidable mage.

  But not formidable enough.

  “I think you’re right,” she said. “I think this could work. Only I can’t do it by myself. What you’re suggesting will require two mages.”

  He sneered. “Not being dim, Deenie, I had worked that out. So you’ll unbind me. Now. There’s no telling how soon Morg will wake.”

  Unbind him? Deenie looked down so he’d not see her eyes.

  Unbound, he’ll be even more powerful. And Barl alone knows what magics he’s been learning from Morg. If I unbind him, how do I know I won’t be creating another monster?

  “Deenie,” said Arlin sharply, leaning forward. “I thought we understood each other. I want to end this madness. I want to end him. This land belongs to my people and I want it back. The Doranen need to start afresh, away from the Olken. And the Olken?” He shrugged. “Your people have a right to a life without us.”

  She stared and stared at him, but still she couldn’t sense any deception. But there was fear. The notion of her unbinding him? He knew he gambled with his life.

  Arlin’s face was tight with impatience, and trepidation. “Well?”

  “All right,” she said at last. “But if you’re lying, Arlin, I’ll kill you.” Then she smiled, not sweetly. “I might kill you anyway. Breaking the reef was one thing—but you’re flesh and blood.”

  He smiled back at her, so arrogant. “Perhaps I’ll break you.”

  Sink me sideways, Da. What Arlin Garrick needs is a clip round the ear.

  Shoving her chair back and standing, she looked around the library then pointed to a clear space on the rich carpet. “Lie down.”

  When he was stretched out on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling, she sat on her heels beside him. Rested her right hand lightly on his chest and folded her left hand in her lap.

  “Before we start,” she said, “do you know an incant to muffle the room? There might well be screaming and I’m not sure I could explain this to one of Morg’s winged beasts.”

  Arlin gave her a scorching look, but did as she said.

  On a slow exhalation, Deenie sank her mage-sense deep into him. Immediately felt the intricate twists and turns of Morg’s bindings, even more complex than the ward on that first Sarle Baden’s book.

  Oh, Da. This is tricky. This’ll hurt him, no mistake.

  “Hold fast, Arlin,” she murmured. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  But she couldn’t be quick, she had to be painfully slow—or risk killing him. And though she did hate him, she wasn’t eager for his death. The thought of Rafe as Morg’s prisoner, the fear of Morg waking, too powerful for defeat, pressed her and pressed her to go faster than she should. She resisted the temptation. And when Arlin screamed, she wept.

  And then it was over and he was broken, like the reef.

  It took some time for both of them to stop shaking. Goose hovered, fretting, making small sounds of distress.

  At last Deenie looked down at Arlin’s sickly pale face. “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. “I did try to be kind.”

  Still lying flat, he managed to shrug. There was a strange resignation in his red-rimmed eyes. “No. I deserved it.”

  She didn’t want to know why. “Can you stand? Are you strong enough? Arlin, we need to go.”

  “A moment,” he whispered. “Just give me a moment.”

  Leaving him, she returned to the table and again looked through the three books Rafel had found for them. Pushed aside the collection of binding hexes, then opened the Baden to the incants of execution and, wincing, ripped out the page. Sorry, Mama. Then she ripped out the page in Novil’s journal with the incant that would coax a soul into the air. Arlin still looked wretched, unable to move, so she slid onto the chair and studied the spell. Like the Words of UnMaking it was deceptively simple. The words seemed to slide comfortably under her skin. As though she already knew them, and had simply forgotten. She shivered.

  This is wrong, this magic. It shouldn’t be.

  Only Rafe had said to use it, so that was that.

  Nervous, she glanced at the ceiling. They had hours, Arlin had said. But even so, to be safe, surely they should be on their way?

  “Arlin? Which of these binding hexes will we best need?”

  Stifling a groan, he sat up. “All of them.”

  So she handed him the book, tucked the folded torn-out pages inside her shirt, kissed Goose on the cheek, and left the library at Arlin’s side.

  No beast challenged them as they made their carefully unhurried way to Morg’s eyrie. Instead the horrible things bowed their heads, grunting obeisance, as Arlin passed by. The Lord of Elvado, indeed. Mouse-like, Deenie trailed in his wake, head down, gaze down, no sinkin’ threat at all, with every humble step a desperate prayer.

  Let this work. Let Rafe be there. Don’t make me UnMake him. We don’t want to die.

  Cautiously she stretched out her mage-sense, but she still couldn’t feel Morg. Despite all the beasts, even his blight was easing. There was a lot of Arlin’s magic in Elvado. Maybe that made the difference.

  Or maybe there was only a respite because the sorcerer slept.

  There were no beasts at the top of this prison called, Arlin told her under his breath, the Hall of Knowledge. And then he told her, climbing still more stairs, that Morg had recreated it himself. She found the notion unnerving. How could such a monster make something so beautiful?

  By the time they reached the sorcerer’s eyrie she was trickled with sweat from all the climbing and Arlin’s face was fish-belly white.

  “Can you do this?” she said, her voice low. “Are you strong enough?”

  Eyeing her with contempt, his prone frailty vanished, he thrust the book of binding hexes at her. “Yes. Wait here.”

  He pushed open the eyrie’s doors and entered, leaving her to pull the sweaty folded papers from inside her shirt and flap them dry.

  Oh, Da, now we’re down to it. Now we find out if I’m truly your daughter.

  Floors and floors and floors below her, Ewen and Charis fretted i
n a cage. If she let herself, she’d feel his burning wounds and her fear. If she let herself she’d crumple in a heap on black marble.

  Please Barl, let me be good enough. Please Barl, let us live.

  Arlin reappeared in the chamber doorway. “He’s still in trance. Hurry.”

  Heart thudding, she tucked the pages into her leather trews waistband and entered the softly glimlit chamber. Arlin swung the doors closed behind her then held out his hand.

  “Give me the binding book. We’ll need to share warding this chamber. This many bindings, this kind of magic, it will take a toll—and it’s only the beginning.”

  “You start,” she said, giving the book to him, her gaze fixed to the back of the single tall throne. From behind it looked empty. “I’ll join you in a moment.”

  He wanted to argue, she could see it, but instead he opened the book of binding hexes, turned another page, and ripped it in two.

  “Here.”

  Holding her half of the book, she edged around the chamber until she could see who was sitting in that tall, imposing chair.

  Rafel.

  Motionless, lightly breathing, he didn’t stir at her approach. The glimlight showed her his closed eyes, his thin face, his crooked nose, his long hair. Oh, how he must hate that. First thing, once she freed him? He’d be shouting for scissors, he would.

  “Rafel,” she whispered, as the tears rolled down her face.

  Arlin hissed at her. “Be quiet.”

  She blotted her cheeks on her sleeve. “If Morg’s still tranced, can’t we wake Rafel?”

  “No.”

  And Arlin was right, of course. It was too risky. Only there he was, her fratchsome big brother. She’d stolen a skiff and dared waterspouts and whirlpools and a poisoned reef to find him. She’d been broken, remade, become something entirely new. She had death at her fingertips. She could kill with a word.

  And all she wanted to do was hold him.

  “Deenie!”

  Arlin was glaring at her, furious, his half of the torn binding book clutched in his hand.

  “Get away from him!” he said. “Are you truly dim? We must bind this chamber now.”

  Poxy, arrogant shit.

  But as he raised his right hand to draw the first hex’s sigil on the air, she leapt towards him. “Wait!”