Fletcher

by P. S. Power

  “It will be done, Depak Sona. I should have seen to that already. Please forgive the lack.” The words were a little rough sounding. Then, he was a servant, not one of the Princes.

  Certainly, Depak didn’t have a problem understanding him.

  “Ah! Marvelous. Will this be for all here, along this hallway, or merely myself?”

  Before Daren could answer, Anders smiled.

  “Everyone, including the new Princess. That’s a big step up, if you can do a good job. Which you can. If you need to, you can call on me to help. Possibly Prince Erold as well. I’ll make sure he knows who’s in charge of that, so he can arrange things with you.”

  That got the man to turn red and leave so suddenly it was almost as if he was fleeing from them. As if Erold hadn’t been around most of his life as well as Anders. Then, they hadn’t really played together or anything. Daren was only three years older than Prince Erold, and four past Anders. It was probably just that most people were intelligent enough not to make faces at the Prince in the hallway.

  As they ate, Depak smiled in his direction.

  “I found very little on blood magic in the works I have here. Do you know who might have access to a greater library?”

  He didn’t. In part. Blinking he took a deep breath.

  “There are some older books that address such things. The Sling’et Oth Moore, for instance, that speak on the subject. I don’t know who would have a copy of that in a language that you speak. I can ask around. Prince Robarts might have information that way, or Master Tolan. Not that you couldn’t ask them yourself to good effect. I can take a message to either, if you wish?”

  There were narrowed eyes then. The gaze lingered, the brown eyes searching his face for some reason.

  “I have heard of this book. The Sling’et Oth Moore. A work in the dead language of Soth’aa, long forgotten by history. Burned and destroyed where it was found, for over five hundred years, which is only spoken of in texts so old that I’ve seen only copies of copies of copies. It is odd that you would know of it.”

  Anders wrinkled his nose. It itched suddenly.

  “Not really odd at all. I have it memorized. In Soth’aa, which isn’t that hard to translate from. It’s rather gruesome, so I never bothered to examine what it meant that closely, while I lived.” A thought occurred to him then, so he nodded. “Which… yes. I can see that might make me look guilty now, with blood magic being used here. There is a large difference between reading a book, memorizing it and using its contents. We were trained to absorb and repeat, perfectly. Not to analyze the written page.”

  They sat there, eating their meal slowly for a long while. Finally, Farad pushed at the collective until Anders asked a single question.

  “I wonder if that’s what happened to Ganges? He was a good man. Kind and gentle of heart! Still, he left the historians to take up magic. Sling’et Oth Moore is not the only text of that sort he committed to memory. Even half trained he would have had… Oh, four or five of the great books.” Thinking about it he counted the hallways of his mind, as to what he’d learned by the time he was two decades old. “Seven of them by the time he left us.”

  Depak Sona took a deep breath then.

  “In your own mind you have such works? And now at least the knowledge of how to make such things work. In part. You are correct in that a discipline is different than reading a thing. Still, you have the knowledge to bring back the great terror, hidden within you?”

  Fear took him then. A real, bodily thing that both Anders and Farad were aware of. Not because the man across from them plotted their death either. If he was doing such a thing, then he hid it perfectly. No, it was that there was only one way to make sure that didn’t happen. A single thing that would prevent the world from falling into that horror again, whatever it was.

  “We should, perhaps, seek my death? It is not what I would want for Anders. If you feel it is the only way and honestly, I can see no other, then he agrees to die. As do I.”

  There was a serious expression on the Magician’s face, then a shrugging move so inelegant that it seemed almost to make half his body melt under his colorful robe of the day. The pattern in black was of a tree, with a golden sun that gave way to red. The rest was a blue that nearly matched the shade of what Anders had on while putting him to shame.

  “Why? Any person might turn to evil. Any evil might even seem good in the right light. It is evil to kill, is it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “I believe the same and so does everyone else you will meet this day, I would suggest. If an army stands at your gate and will take the life of your friends, your family, if you do not stop them, is it evil to take their lives?”

  Farad was used to such games of thought, since it was an old pastime of his at meals. Played with other historians, none of who were foolish or weak of mind. It had left him sharp that way.

  “I take your meaning. Still, if you could have stopped the sweet boy named Ganges, when his only skill was reading and recording books, would you have done it? He was as helpless as any man unskilled at arms, with no magics that I know of. Would it be good or ill to have killed my friend then? If he is the same man, and I think that likely, I cannot think of anything that he had ever done that would have warranted death. Then, how many would have lived if not for my lack of doing that, even not knowing that it was possibly needed?”

  There was no speech then while the man across from him sipped a morning tea from a white cup. His mustache not moving into a smile at all as he contemplated the idea.

  “Exactly. It is the same here. Do I kill my new friend, for what he might one day become, or do I seek instead to aid him in becoming something better? Magic is, in the end only a tool. A versatile one, as useful for aiding those in need as harming those who would harm. I’ve used it for both myself, even in the last weeks. One could look at my shelves of books and compare that to what you hold in your mind. True, none of them are the Sling’et Oth Moore… But some few contain things that are probably as bad. I’ve read them all and never sought the darkest of things in them and have no plans to.”

  Anders sipped his own tea, taking it black each day, which meant he wasn’t volunteering to take anyone into his bed, just in case that translated to the new people there.

  “Nor do I. Anders the boy in here with me, either. Still, I was up last night, thinking of a new style of magic to use, which is a sign that I might be seeking beyond what is proper, isn’t it?”

  “What were you planning?”

  The conversation changed then, with his description of the rather plain and possibly timid things he had in mind. Rather than mock him or suggest it a great evil, the man finally nodded.

  “That sounds fine. You are right. Learning the freedom of a language is massively more powerful. Still, in combat or under threat, having oh, twenty or thirty things you can produce quickly in that fashion might well be very useful. We’ll work on that later, after making you drill what you already know over and over again, later today.”

  That was a dismissal and as he bowed out of the room, Daren was out in the hallway, waiting to take the dishes away, with a rolling cart made of wood, that already had many rooms worth of plates and glasses on it.

  “I believe Depak Sona is finished? Thank you, by the way. I know that everyone else is feeling a bit shy around the new people. They’re all kind and gentle enough. That’s hard for people to get at a distance.” He sounded too old by several decades. More than that.

  Daren didn’t seem to get that, just responding by ducking his head.

  “I just figured that you were going to yell at us too, if no one stepped up here. Master Belford came at us last night after his night meal, screaming and carrying on. Waving that stick of his and saying that if we didn’t do our jobs that he’d have us fired. He could do it too. Important man there, being the off git of the King and our Estella. Not that I mean anything by that. He’s raised himself up in the world right, all on his own. Like you’re
doing.” He seemed wistful then, as if he wished for that himself.

  “Like you can do now. Inside that door is a kind man in a strange land who holds both power and wisdom. You know Master Belford as well. If you can take the constant beatings, it might pay to go and ask for his help that way. He’s done it himself and knows secrets about a lot of things. How to get things done that will make your life better. It might not work for you. Then, if you don’t try, you won’t know.”

  Plus, if the man did any of that, it would probably mean he was going to show up for work the next day. Even there in the frightening hallway that had all the strange new magic users in it.

  Chapter nineteen

  The Master Fletcher had him working frantically on new arrows and bolts the next day. From the moment he walked into the space until he left at just after the mid-day meal, a thing that was brought in for him to eat in the few moments between sets by Garen. It was just bread and cheese, with a thin coating of butter on it and some green herbs, for health.

  Then he had to get right back to work, the very moment that the man waved him away.

  “Domes Day, so we have to rectify any inequalities in the books. Arrows and bolts always get miscounted and go missing, so we need to make a few up, now. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow?”

  The words forced him to think for a few seconds, recalling that he actually had plans for the next day that wouldn’t require him to be there at all. Technically he had orders from the first Prince for that, meaning it was kind of important that he actually take the celebration and festival days off.

  Otherwise it would be a slap into the face of Prince Robarts, who’d gone out of his way to be helpful to him, even if there was no real reason for it.

  He jogged, not nearly as winded as he had been from similar actions in the last week and a half or so. That meant he was building back up, after his illness. It was interesting, being young and healthy that way, even if he was still going to be working on that last portion for some time. Farad had been slow and his joints had ached a bit for the last decades of his life. This was free feeling and light. As if jumping and running around was a thing to do for pleasure, instead of just in the rare situations where circumstances required it of him.

  His bow was in his hand, along with a large satchel of arrows. Depak Sona had been called into a meeting with the King and his top advisers. Along with the Modroc Ambassador, which sounded important and significant to him. Not that any part of him understood if that might or might not be normal. That meant he didn’t have a friend to practice shooting with that day.

  No one to tell on him if he only fired ninety arrows instead of the full one hundred either. It was tempting, particularly when he worked with the target wreath again. He was doing better, without it truly being rewarding all the time yet.

  “Pull back to the same point, each time. Look at the target and line up the gap under it…” The words were muttered and probably correct.

  They still didn’t have him inside the wreath every time. In fact, he made something of a mess, with one hundred light arrows sticking out of the rolled hay in a pattern nearly the size of his own body by the time he was finished. Better than the day before, without being good at all.

  Having been given instructions as to what to do next, he spent the rest of the afternoon working on his new magical tricks. The hand gestures of power, as he was starting to think of them. For that he had to set up a special target, since the first thing he wanted to work on was a special gesture to put flames out.

  That was done with his left hand, the third finger down and thumb out to the side, pointing at what was in front of him. A thing practiced in his head many times first, with a simple feeling to go with it, that of fire shrinking and growing cold.

  Then he worked on making fire with a pushing gesture of his right hand, standing there in the field, away from everything, with an old stump in front of him. That took well over an hour, though they both worked the first time he tried them, which was heartening to see. There was a new fire visualization, which was more of a feeling of a flame when the hand gesture was made. Instead of a sense of a ball drawing inward, which was what he used for the fire spell when he said Ro.

  Setting the wood on fire took about half a minute at first. He pointed his hand and held it there, until what was in front of where he pointed burst into flames. That was the weakness of the new system he was coming up with. There was no way to make it more exacting. At three paces it was accurate enough, but at ten it would probably be about like aiming an arrow.

  When true flame finally sparked into being, smoke rising around it, he reversed hands, using the difficult to achieve gesture to put the fire out. That was also slow, taking nearly a minute. In the end he walked over to the wood and dared to put his left hand on it directly. It was warm to the touch, without burning him in any way.

  Then, over and over again until he honestly figured he was going to fall down, he drilled the new magics into his mind. Focusing each and every time he made the motions, trying to speed the effects up and increase the power of it. Both were done hundreds of times, which really did make it faster for him. In the end, as his stomach tried to eat itself in hunger, he could light the log on fire in about two breaths. Putting it out still took longer, if not that much.

  He ended before it was time for the late meal, simply not being able to go on at the moment. Instead of going to beg for scraps from the kitchen, a thing that Anders was quite willing to do, it having been his daily habit for years, he headed off to the same place and waved at Senna Grace. She hurried over, bustling, if in a happy fashion.

  “You’ll be needing a small something to keep you going?”

  He nodded, then spoke before she could turn and simply hand him whatever was at hand before the head cook could see her do it. Not that the man didn’t know. He was clearly looking away, smirking at the moment. That had always happened, though the boy inside of him had felt a bit more clever and like he was getting away with something, begging treats for himself like that.

  “I can make it? I have a few hours and can’t practice magic anymore right now. Not without eating something.” His stomach put in a word then, fairly yelling about its distress. That got the lady to go wide eyed.

  The head cook spun, clearly being alerted by the noise and waved a hand.

  “You’re on outdoor cooking? Why not do the spit roast out there today, Senna? You can have your apprentice here do the work on that and supervise him. Venison. We need ten haunches for the early part of the celebration tomorrow.”

  The woman in front of him smiled then.

  “Right! Help me collect what we need. I’ll review the herbs that we’ll be using and why.”

  That action didn’t get him an immediate tidbit to eat, though as soon as the coals had burned down and the large hunks of meat were on the metal spits over the fire pit, Senna had him mix up some flour and water, with a bit of salt and a tiny bit of animal fat.

  “Bannock. Not the tastiest food in the world. The most common bread on the road, if you’re making fresh. It’s hard to keep yeast alive for that. Not impossible. We’ll be going over that soon and I’ll be sending you with some when you go. If you have to. That part doesn’t seem right to me. Why send a boy cook like that?” She was seeking answers, it seemed.

  Smiling, Anders mixed the ingredients as instructed, listening to her when she explained all the variations he might be able to make up. They were doing the heavy meat on five spits, which meant they had two very hardworking boys, slightly younger than himself, standing there and turning the things. They didn’t do it constantly, and didn’t make eye contact with him, even if he knew them. They lived at the castle after all.

  Children of some of the servants. Never ones to have played with him in particular, for some reason. A thing that Anders assumed as them thinking he wasn’t as good as they were, since he didn’t do the same things each day. Farad figured it would be that they simply hadn’t been allowed to pla
y together often, since Anders was, if not high born, higher than the servants. Lower than the nobles at the same time.

  Except that he’d been the main companion of the youngest Prince, which gave the lie to the idea he wasn’t considered important at all there.

  The meat needed to be basted and the two boys, Farnell and Troth seemed bored, even as they kept moving. The tricky part of making the flat, unleavened bread was going to be in using a rock to bake it on and covering the thing with hot coals and ash. That part felt wrong, though it was what Senna instructed him to do with it. He made ten of the little cakes, not taking long at all for them to be finished.

  When they were done he had to carefully use a stick to uncover them and get them to a nearby rock to cool enough to touch. There were burnt spots on the outside. This time instead of being punished, the older woman just winked at him.

  “That happens when you bury things in coals like that. It works and will come up on the trail. Now, as soon as those cool, we’ll cut you off a slice of meat to go with it.”

  There was a lot of the bread, since he needed the practice, meaning that he cut the portion he had in three parts, ate half the food himself, then gestured at the other boys.

  “I’ll take a go at the spit while each of you eats? One at a time. I’ve never done this before.”

  Senna snorted at him, seeming happy enough that he was sharing at all, even if he’d eaten half of it himself. That was greedy, even though he was still hungry from the work he’d done. Troth nodded then.

  “Thanks be to you, then, Anders. That does look good.”

  It wasn’t in particular. The bread was tough and the meat undercooked and on the wrong side of red still. There were no complaints and the boy didn't linger over it, getting his share down, as Anders worked the spit. Then he had to trade with Farnell for the same reason. The other boys were both dark haired and eyed, if as light of skin as he was himself. Shorter. They were younger, which probably explained that.