The Gossamer Mage

by Julie E. Czerneda

  “Humph.” Tercle sat and poured herself tea. “The damesen’s out for her dawn walk, then. A reprehensible habit,” with better cheer. “I made sure to keep my head under the pillow.”

  Dawn was past. It looked, Kait thought, turning to glance outside, a fairer day than the last.

  Maleonarial came through the door to the dining hall. Had he been upstairs? Not, she judged, by towel over one shoulder. “Good morning. Has anyone seen Harn?”

  A scream answered.

  * * *

  Tercle had to see this, Pylor decided. She’d be seeing it now, but her friend, as usual, buried her head under a pillow rather than walk in the early morning air.

  The object of the damesen’s interest was the school’s midden. With its daily load of fat trimmings and other wastes from the kitchen, it should reek like any other, but here made-roses formed a fragrant hedge around this necessity of life, even this late in the growing season. The plants were ugly and twisted, their flowers a multitude of smallish pink balls along thorny stems, and the roses didn’t so much nullify the stench as crush it beneath their own.

  Finally, a use for magic of which she could approve, of practical value. While hardly the glamorous magic she imagined students dreamt of creating, a newly graduated mage scribe could, with this and at the cost of a single bell, earn a favorable impression from hold lord to kitchen dreg—until those made-roses turned to ash, but by then, she supposed a prudent scribe would have found other ways to please.

  Or left.

  The made-roses improved the air; Pylor noted scavengers weren’t deterred. Gulls and crows circled, bickering, intent on the prize below; rats and mice scurried within the hedge, safe from the made-cats who guarded the storerooms.

  Movement, larger, caught her eye. Before she could worry, she realized it was the student, Harn, scurrying like a mouse himself as if to avoid notice.

  Pylor hesitated, fingers light on the handle of her cane. She hadn’t meant to send him away last night. Tercle had the right of it. She’d been too caught up in her own concerns. Thoughtless.

  Where was he going at this hour?

  She told herself walking the same way wasn’t following him.

  Maybe he sought privacy, a need she shared. Hadn’t the chance to walk outside, alone, drawn her out despite the poor sleep of the night before? She was glad to let Tercle rest.

  Poor Tercle. A damesen’s rank meant nothing here. Their task—the one she believed they had—meant nothing. Tercle wouldn’t linger abed for long, being eager to meet with the inkmaster, show their samples, and learn how much the school used and what, if any, stockpiles they possessed. Her apprentice had collected rumors along their route, while she’d been—preoccupied. Icot’s mines were running out. Had run out. There had never been mines; the lapis ground in the school came via smugglers along the coast who expected magic in return. As if anywhere but Her Mouth offered a port, and magic could be bottled.

  Pylor missed the coast. Missed the sea.

  Missed mattering. She’d no role to play. Was that why her steps followed Harn’s?

  The mage and daughter had surely met last night, though Kait could only say she’d take over the watch, earning Tercle’s sarcastic thanks. Was she herself so shallow that when left out of the councils of others, lacking magic or “gifts,” she sought to make herself important? Be needed?

  No. There were plentiful spots to sit alone. Pylor watched Harn pass them all, hunched over and now moving in haste.

  His haste troubled her. His being alone out here, did. Most of all, her growing conviction she knew his destination. The hedge where Maleonarial had left the wagon with Insom’s urns. It should be ahead, along the roadway past the first pond.

  She looked around, seeking help, finding none.

  Harn was almost out of sight.

  Reluctantly, Pylor continued after him, walking by the low stone wall that impounded this and the other ponds. The mortar here was as patched and weathered as that of Tiler’s Hold, unlike the school’s main buildings, rebuilt, she’d been informed, fifty-five years ago. A student, it had been. Something to do with firemoths.

  You think they’d learn not to create the things.

  Fins and tails broke the surface. Mouths gaped, sucking down bits of debris. Stocked, no doubt, for the students’ table.

  And so of interest to gulls.

  They wheeled overhead, skimmed over the pond. Looking for fish. Real birds, looking for fish, and that was all they were, but Pylor used her injured hand to pull her borrowed hood snug. Walked faster. Readied her cane.

  The nearest gulls swerved aside with high-pitched rising squeals of indignation as one of their multitude dropped to the wall, wings outstretched as it waddled beside her on ungainly yellow feet.

  Oh no. “Be gone!” She swiped at it with the cane’s metal tip. It hopped out of the way, then came back down.

  A beak longer than her hand, hooked and vicious. A beak that gaped open, as though begging a treat, and to her horror, but not surprise, Insom’s voice issued from its throat, deep-toned and full of grief. “You’re too late, cousin.”

  Her breath caught.

  The voice became shrill. “Too late! Too weak. Too small. We can’t be stopped. We won’t be. We’ve starved too long.” A laugh like the cry of a bird. “It’s our time!”

  Pylor swung the cane again, this time with both hands, missing as the damned bird hopped.

  The beak gaped and the voice issuing forth was cold and strange. “Die now. Die now. Die now.”

  She stumbled back. “Get away!”

  The beak snapped shut. White wings, that unnatural black roiling beneath, cut the air and the creature lifted away as if to convey her words.

  Only to turn and dive.

  It wasn’t alone. She screamed as the first took an eye but the next ripped out her tongue, and as Pylor fell beneath the crush of beating wings and tearing beaks, a man stood watching.

  Dolren?

  Unable to say his name, she reached for him and he came close and she believed there was a chance she’d live—

  Until he bent to smile at her, black lightning in his eyes.

  * * *

  He was out the door first, the rest hard behind, but they were too late. The heap of squabbling, feasting birds ignored their arrival and whatever lay beneath them?

  No longer moved.

  Leksand ran at the birds with a broom. They rose like bones tossed in the air, gore staining feathers and beaks, to hover overhead. Eyes intent. Waiting their chance to land again.

  Maleonarial dropped to a knee, pulled out pen and vial and parchment, wrote with such quick clarity he had to step back or be buffeted by extraordinary wings as the made-eagle soared upward, shrieking its rage. Larger than a bird could or should be, it drove the panicked gulls and crows ahead of it and out of sight.

  Far enough. As he stood erect, a twinge afflicted the knee he’d bent, another his lower back.

  The Hag, never neglectful of Her toll.

  He reached the body as Kait laid her cloak over the ruined face and chest, then took a sobbing Tercle in her arms.

  Leksand stood, breathing in shattered gasps. Maleonarial took the broom from his unresisting hand. “Fetch help. There’s staff in the dining hall. Go,” when the boy stared at him.

  Sense reentered those eyes, so like his mother’s. “Aie.” He took off at a run.

  “I hate birds. I hate birds. HATE THEM.” Tercle jerked free to kneel by the cloaked remains of her friend.

  Gulls didn’t attack and kill people, but they were opportunists, ready to scavenge, as were crows. Insom’s made-gull would have struck first, but why? And why now?

  “Mage.” The daughter came up to him, whispering urgently. “Look. Her hand.”

  An arm outstretched. It might have been flung in the woman’s final struggle, a de
sperate reach for the cane lying on the ground, but not the rigid finger, pointing toward—

  “The urns.”

  Their eyes met. “I’ll wait for help,” Maleonarial told her. “You go.”

  “Aie.”

  The same grim acknowledgment as her son, but as Kait turned and left, stooping to grab the cane, the mage heard an echo like thunder.

  * * *

  “Hurry! There’s been an accident!” Not that it had been, Leksand thought, holding the door open, waving to speed those inside out where they could be of use.

  Not that they could help the damesen, who’d been kind to him and patient, but Tercle—

  “The master’s there,” when they hesitated, not having Her Gift and unable to sense the blaze of Maleonarial’s, fearing—as they should in this terrible place—what “accident” encompassed at a school that made monsters. “You’ll be safe. Come quickly!”

  Not that they’d be safe, any of them. The damesen had been slaughtered. What would the Eaters do next?

  They ran through the door: Eaples with two women. One grabbed a stack of clean linens and jug of water on her way, as Momma would, so he gave her a nod as she passed.

  Leksand came behind, pointing to where Maleonarial stood. “Over there.” The women hurried onward.

  Eaples halted, shading his eyes. “Hey!” he shouted. “You there! Stop!” He broke into a run, going the wrong direction. “Come on. We have to stop the fool.”

  They’d one missing—Leksand caught up in two strides and the older man swung an arm to urge him on, panting. “Don’t let him pass the markers or Slog’ll have him!”

  A figure walked toward the last pond before the stone fence. The area seemed innocuous, and what in Tananen was a “slog”? Surely the man should hear Eaple’s continued warning shouts. Why didn’t he stop?

  He must have heard the damesen’s scream. Why hadn’t he gone to her?

  Leksand ran faster, the fetid stench of crowded fish and stale water assaulting his nostrils. He could find his way home by smells at this rate—

  Unlike the other ponds, this one was circled by narrow stones, waist-high and painted red. The figure walked between them. One step, two, while Leksand pushed harder, ran faster—

  Huge snake-like things reared up from the ground—moved with horrifying speed toward the figure.

  Who kept walking as though oblivious—

  Or seeking their embrace—somehow, Leksand ran faster, for it mustn’t be—

  “Harn!!” he shouted.

  * * *

  She’d thought it a fair day, as if a clear sunny sky never looked down on death, as if the absence of storm implied peace.

  Fool. Thrice fool and worse. The damesen had warned against doing what the Eaters wanted. Had confessed to fear and distrust and if Kait could have any moment back, it would be the one where she’d listened but hadn’t heard, too full of her plans and Maleonarial’s to appreciate who was in the greatest danger.

  She reached the funeral wagon before realizing it.

  Tidy lines of glittering ash marked where beautiful made-horses had stood, surrounded by empty harness and the memory of purpose. Atop the barren hedge, frosted tips caught the light but the sun had yet to do more than send skeletal shadows over the wagons and carriage.

  Kait made her way through the harness and ash, stepped over the wooden tongue. She listened for what wasn’t sound, as she had through the night, the deeper focus become almost second nature.

  Nothing.

  Which could be good news or the worst news and she wouldn’t know till she caught up her courage and checked the bloody urns, would she? She tiptoed around to where the freight wagon had been left.

  Maleonarial’s tactic was obvious; he’d rammed the tail of the wagon into the shrubs and stone. A shame it had been for nought. Someone had taken a knife to the front canvas, cutting a slice from top to bottom of the panel behind the driver’s seat.

  Inwardly cursing her short legs and shorter body, Kait climbed into the well of the driver seat as quietly as she could. She steadied the cane as a club in one hand and put her hand on the nearest parted canvas, ready to step inside.

  Harn’s head appeared in the opening. “Good—morning?” The student eyed the club worriedly. “Is everything all right?”

  Not with him, it wasn’t, Kait saw plain as could be. He’d aged overnight, his jaw developing what would be jowls, the tousled ruddy ringlets subdued into brown wavy locks. His face, though, blushed as crimson as Leksand’s when caught in misadventure.

  “Don’t you ‘good morning’ me, Harneonarial,” she admonished, lowering the cane in relief. “What have you been up to?” Without waiting for an answer, Kait shooed him aside and climbed in after him.

  “Nothing. The canvas was cut—I swear this was done before I got here,” he babbled, stepping awkwardly between the urns.

  Urns opened, their ornate seals tossed like so much litter to the floor below, the masters’ accomplishments bent and broken.

  “—I came looking for a better pen. Like Leksand’s. A master’s pen—” His voice fell away when she looked up at him.

  It was quiet. Far too quiet in every sense. Kait clutched the cold rim of an urn, began to pull herself up to look inside, hoping to see black fumes, knowing she wouldn’t.

  “Don’t bother. It’s seawater. In all of them,” Harn added, as if belatedly realizing more was wrong than his transgression.

  Because it was. “We have to get back to the school,” Kait told him.

  If it wasn’t already too late.

  * * *

  “Harn!!”

  Others would care for the dead and grieving. Hearing Leksand’s anguished shout, Maleonarial hastened to where Eaples and Leksand were trying to forestall another death. He took the shortest route, risking the slimy weir between the first and second ponds, jumping the gap, then running, sure-footed and quick, along the impounding wall. None of which his body could have done before Riverhill.

  For once, he found himself grateful to The Hag.

  He hadn’t thought to warn Leksand about the dangers inhabiting the school, didn’t know the latest himself for that matter, but someone should have—

  Eaples was with the boy. Good. But Leksand was twice as fast, putting him first past the markers as he ran for Harn. Who kept walking into danger, not away, but there should be time. Slog didn’t care for daylight as much. Like the made-toads on the walls, it grew sluggish with the cold, but the damned thing hadn’t died of it.

  Sluggish? All at once, what had appeared paving stones and bright moss rose overhead, tentacles whipping through the air as Slog abandoned stealth for speed, eager for the bounty in its grasp. One seized Harn, dragging him toward the pond. Leksand kept running after him. Eaples followed bravely. They managed to dodge the first but more tentacles rose, then more—

  Pylor had been right. What good was magic? Maleonarial thought savagely, with no time to think of an intention of use, let alone write it if he did. What good was he, but as another meal for the monster?

  He didn’t slow. “I’m coming!”

  As were others now, with rakes and shovels and who knew what. Courageous and foolish, but they refused to remain safe. Maleonarial feared all they’d accomplish was Slog would feast today—

  Tentacles became ash, drifting sideways in the light breeze.

  * * *

  Momentum drove Leksand forward, when everything else seemed to have stopped moving. He ran through what had been a dangerous tentacle a heartbeat ago, throwing up an arm to shield his eyes from the ash. Which would be why he stumbled over the body.

  It was a body, that much he could tell at once, having fallen on what was ice cold and squished and no longer remotely alive. He writhed free of the corpse with dismay, then as quickly leapt back to turn it, with fearful care, face up.

 
It wasn’t Harn.

  The Lady forgive him, he couldn’t help but be glad it wasn’t, when he should grieve for who it was, Dolren Keeperson.

  Insom’s servant. Here?

  “It’s not—” Maleonarial let out a long breath, making Leksand feel slightly better about his priorities in the newly dead. “Dolren was to stay in Alden Hold.”

  Great-uncle, who rarely made judgments of strangers, had called Dolren a slimy little worm, but not even a worm deserved such a death. Leksand looked up at the mage. “He could have hidden in the wagon. But why—” he shut his mouth over the words. The Lady save them. The urns.

  “We called to him to stop, Master Maleonarial.” Eaples was sweating, shaken. “Why didn’t he listen?”

  “That’s why,” Maleonarial said, pointing to the pond. “What rode poor Dolren knew what it wanted.”

  Leksand got to his feet, transfixed with everyone else as the water level plummeted, exposing the dark silt of the surrounding shore, dropping below the level of the grated weir at its outlet. Kept dropping, as if being sucked down, while the surface glittered with a growing layer of ash and he knew—

  Slog had met a greater foe, one that sought out and consumed what was made with magic.

  The Eaters were free.

  * * *

  With the moment come and doom most likely upon the world, Kait Alder found herself calm, almost cold. Oh, she ran as fast as she could, Harn with her, but when they took the turn in the road that revealed the doings behind the school, could see those around the damesen’s bloody corpse, those gathered for doubtless as grim a reason by the distant pond, and her heart found Leksand before her eyes could—

  None of that mattered. She knew where the Eaters would go.

  Between the stones. Inside. To hunt.

  Inside—

  Kait stopped in her tracks, grabbing Harn to stop him too.