Bronze Magic

by Jennifer Ealey

  “Sorry,” said Stormaway, but Tarkyn suspected he was passing on a bit of the pain he had suffered himself. “Don’t know much about mind talking, you know.”

  “Let me demonstrate,” offered Waterstone dryly. In a normal conversational voice, he addressed the two woodfolk, “Thunder Storm, Summer Rain. Leave them for now. Let’s discuss it with Tarkyn and Stormaway.” As soon as the woodfolk’s attention was back with them, he began, “Getting away is not the problem. We can be ready to leave within an hour, although we will have to travel through the treetops so that our scent can’t be followed.”

  “The problem is making sure that we keep our existence secret,” rumbled Thunder Storm. “We need to cover up the fact that we have killed the wolves. So we have to create another explanation for the wolves’ deaths.”

  “And we can’t leave the corpses and simulate any sort of a fight,” said Summer Rain, as she added more water to the kettle from a hessian bag, “because we have cleaned, skinned and dismembered the wolves. So we’ll have to conceal the skeletons and innards that we haven’t used. And we can’t just bury them at the site, because any wolves following will sniff them out.”

  “Throw them in the river?” suggested Tarkyn.

  Waterstone grimaced. “That would prevent them from being sniffed out but if I lost a trail, first place I’d look would be in the river. Can’t hide them in the trees either, because the scent would be carried downwind.”

  “We’ll have to take them with us then,” said Stormaway decisively. Seeing the sceptical looks on the woodfolk’s faces, he added, “At least some of the way. So there’s a break in the trail.”

  “He’s got a point,” Summer Rain conceded. “But the carcasses are so heavy and there are so many of them. We would have to carry several loads each, over a considerable distance, to break the trail.”

  “But the scent of their deaths will still be all around the riverbanks, won’t they?” asked Tarkyn. “Perhaps we could set it up to look as though travellers or bandits had killed them?” He tried to remember the details of the heron’s flight but failed. “Is there a road anywhere nearby that some travellers could have come from?”

  Thunder Storm frowned. “Yes. That’s a possibility. There is a road about four miles to the south. But travellers wouldn’t neatly dissect a wolf’s carcass for future use. So we would still have to conceal their remains and account for their disappearance.” He smiled at the prince, “Travellers don’t seem to eat wolf unless they’re starving.”

  “Oh really?” said Tarkyn, trying to sound surprised.

  Stormaway huffed thoughtfully, “A small switch from each carcass would need to be dragged to lay a false trail to the road. The switches could then be levitated straight upwards from a position close to cart tracks and carried through the treetops to be buried them somewhere else. Then if the trail to the road is followed, the trackers will think that the wolves’ bodies were carried away in a cart out of the forest.”

  “We will also have to create evidence of sorcerers being at the river and travelling between the road and the river,” Waterstone added, as he pulled a branch from the woodpile and fed it into the fire, “No one will believe that the wolves all died, then dragged themselves off to the road to load themselves onto the back of a cart.”

  “Very droll,” said Stormaway dryly. Suddenly, his eyes gleamed as he began to scheme. “What oddments does anyone have that come from villagers or travellers? We need some scraps of cloth or buttons. Anything really… except the remnants of the prince’s clothing, obviously. Then we can salt the ground near the river with evidence of a fight between travellers and the wolves. Combine that with our trail to the road and we should create a convincing story.”

  Waterstone considered it from all angles before replying, “Yes. I think that might work. And we can hide the bulk of the carcasses nearer to hand.” He finished placing another piece of wood on the fire and settling the kettle more firmly in the coals. Then he brushed his hands and stood up, before going into a short mind conference. Once he had re-focussed, he nodded briskly, “Agreed. It’s not perfect. It will require a lot of work to cart the carcasses through the trees and to bury them. And it’s going to be hard to cover up such a large excavation, but it will have to do.”

  “I think I can help with disguising the burial site,” said Tarkyn diffidently. “I could plant a stand of saplings over it.”

  “And we can both add our fire power to the excavation,” put in Stormaway. “And of course, levitate the wolf switches at the road.” He rolled his eyes at Tarkyn. “You realise what this means, Sire? You and I will have to walk to the road laying the false trail. We are the only ones who have the right type of scent, big enough feet and the right sort of boots to make the tracks. Blast it! I don’t want to have to walk all the way to the road but I can’t see any alternative.”

  Thunder Storm raised an objection. “But mightn’t they recognise Tarkyn’s scent?”

  “If they do, they will already know he is here somewhere from the scent around the river.” said the wizard. “It will be better, in that case, to lay his trail to the road and out of the forest anyway.”

  The prince leant forward and adjusted a branch that was threatening to roll out of the fire, “Besides, it is much more important to conceal woodfolk’s presence.”

  “Not if the cost is your safety. Then we wouldn’t have a forest to hide in anyway.” Waterstone felt a flicker of hurt wander past his mind. He reached across and patted the prince on the knee. “Don’t get confused. I can care about you and the forest all at once, you know.”

  A ripple of embarrassment hit the woodman as Tarkyn muttered, “My blasted feelings! I wish they would keep to themselves.”

  The woodman smiled and looked from the wizard to the sorcerer. “So. Are you two prepared to walk to the road, dragging the wolves’ scent? Tarkyn, are you recovered enough to walk that far at the moment?”

  Tarkyn glanced sideways at Summer Rain who was still in discussion with other woodfolk and gave a crooked smile. “I’ll have to be. To be honest, I will find it hard, I think. But the hardest part will be enduring Summer Rain’s disapproval.”

  “Don’t worry about that.” Waterstone shrugged. “Unless someone comes up with an alternative, she will support you to succeed.”

  Summer Rain came back into focus and nodded. “But you and Stormaway must save your strength for the things that only you can do. Don’t push yourself too hard. You would be too heavy for us to carry.”

  Tarkyn stared at her for moment, thinking that finally she had cracked a joke. But no. She was, as usual, completely serious. The sorcerer flicked a glance at Waterstone and blinked.

  Waterstone smothered a smile but he did not allow himself to become distracted. “We have decided on a suitable patch for burying the remains about half a mile to the north. If you both follow me, I’ll show you where to start excavating.”

  With that, the woodman swung himself lightly into the nearest tree and headed off up into the higher boughs of the tree.

  21

  Waterstone ran lithely up one long branch until it began to bend under his weight, then jumped down and across into the next tree. From there, he climbed up higher again to repeat the manoeuvre to land in the tree after that. Sorcerer and wizard incanted, “Maya Reeza Mureva!” and rose gracefully to drift along beside the woodman. Stormaway sighed and rolled his eyes. “I’m getting too old for this, you know,” he said in an aside to the prince.

  Tarkyn raised his eyebrows. “That’s what you said yesterday, but you don’t seem to have suffered any ill effects.”

  “That’s what I always say, but no-one listens to me,” responded the wizard mournfully.

  “Maybe that’s because you never stay anywhere long enough for people to care,” suggested the prince kindly.

  “What rubbish! We all care about him, as much as one can care for a slippery, devious, bigoted chameleon.” Waterstone broke off for a moment as he launched himself into
the next tree. Once he had landed and recovered his balance, he added, between breaths, “Maybe it’s because he loves melodrama. He’s not that old, you know. Unfit perhaps. It’s not his age that’s the problem.”

  Stormaway glared at the woodman. “As you can see,” he said to the prince, “respect is a sadly rare commodity among these folk.”

  Tarkyn thought about all the conversations about respect he had had with Waterstone, Autumn Leaves and Stormaway and found himself so overwhelmed with possible responses to the wizard’s throwaway remark that he couldn’t respond at all. He resorted to diversionary tactics. “How much further is it?” he asked.

  Waterstone pointed ahead. “It’s over that next rise. There’s a rocky clearing on a gentle slope not far from the river. It needs to be somewhere that won’t be washed away if there is heavy rain.”

  “Hmm.” Tarkyn digested this then asked, “Not too rocky, I hope, or the trees won’t grow. Are we going to have to keep off the ground while we do this excavation?”

  The woodman landed neatly on the bough of a large horse chestnut, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. The site is a good half mile from where the wolves were killed and in the opposite direction from the trail we will lay to the road.” He considered this as he stepped around the trunk of the tree and pulled himself lightly up onto a higher branch. “Maybe we’ll throw some water over the area when we’ve finished, to wash away your scent and footprints just to make sure.”

  “Good idea,” said Tarkyn. “That will also help the saplings to establish themselves.”

  “Hmm. For someone who has never been a farmer or a gardener, you seem to know a lot about plants all of a sudden.”

  The prince looked a little startled. “I suppose I could have learnt it from the gardeners,” he said slowly, then shook his head. “No. I didn’t really talk to the gardeners much. I was more interested in chatting to groomsmen and men at arms.” He grinned, “Perhaps being the guardian of the forest comes with knowledge as well as power.”

  “Perhaps the knowledge is part of the power,” suggested the wizard, as they topped the rise and looked down a gently sloping, heavily wooded gully.

  Slightly ahead of them, Waterstone had now swung down out of the trees and was inspecting the ground in front of them. He stood in a small clearing, next to a low pile of tumbled rocks. The grass was sparse in this particular spot and the ground was strewn with small pebbles.

  “That’s not a cairn, is it?” asked Stormaway, frowning at the rocks.

  The woodman stood with his hands on his hips, studying the rocks. He bent over and pulled a couple of the rocks aside. “Not that I know of. I might just check.”

  After a couple of minutes out of focus, he reported that no one knew of any reason that a cairn should be there. “It must just be a natural grouping of rocks, I suppose.” He sounded doubtful. “Well, why don’t we keep away from it just in case it is marking something for someone?” He pointed to a space on the other side of the clearing. “We can dig our hole over there.”

  “And where is your shovel?” demanded Stormaway. “You don’t expect us to do it all, I hope.”

  “Of course. I thought I’d just sit back and watch.” Stormaway’s face darkened but before he could explode, Waterstone said calmly, “Shovels are coming with the first load of carcases.”

  “So I assumed,” said Tarkyn dryly.

  The wizard glowered at them but Waterstone returned his gaze, completely unmoved, a cheeky grin hovering around his mouth.

  “Bloody cocky woodmen.” grumbled Stormaway, as he turned away.

  “Stormaway,” said Tarkyn, “do you have any suggestions as to how we might tackle this – other than just blasting the ground with power?”

  Waterstone intervened hastily. “You don’t want to send the soil too far away. We’ll need most of it to refill the hole.”

  Stormaway raised his eyebrows, “Obviously. We are not complete idiots, you know.”

  Since Tarkyn wouldn’t have thought twice about where the soil ended up, he nodded then shook his head in agreement, a smile lurking in his eyes as they met Waterstone’s across the back of the wizard.

  If Stormaway was aware of his antics, he gave no sign. “If we aim our power beams across each other’s and then moved them both in clockwise direction, the power rays should wrap themselves around each other. Since our individual power rays will have a different frequency of vibration, this should set up a dissonance and gradually destabilise the soil in that area, turning it from a sol to a gel; a similar effect to an earthquake. Then the loosened soil can be removed with very little effort.”

  “You see,” said Tarkyn to Waterstone, “how much I need to learn. I didn’t even realise our power rays vibrated, let alone at different frequencies.”

  The wizard shook his head solemnly, “Shocking. Truly shocking, that your magical education has been so limited.”

  “For once I agree with you,” said the woodman, “I think Tarkyn has been sorely neglected over the years since his father died.”

  Not wishing to add more fuel to their fire, Tarkyn kept a close guard over his feelings and said brusquely, “If you two have finished commiserating over me, do you think we could get on with it? How big do you want this hole?”

  Waterstone shot him a glance but said nothing, and turned his attention to the question. “If we don’t want foxes or other animals digging the carcases straight up again, it will have to be at least six feet deep, and I’d say about seven feet in diameter.” He looked at Stormaway. “What do you think? Does that sound about right?”

  “Quite large, but I think we can manage it.” Stormaway’s tone was noticeably more cordial towards the woodman.

  Oh save me! thought the prince, My neglected education has provided them with a common cause. Oh well, at least some good has come out of it, I suppose.

  “Come on then, Sire,” said the wizard as he positioned himself in front of the area to be excavated. “Stand next to me, about four feet to my right, and let us begin. You will need to sweep slowly around the whole perimeter and then gradually speed up. Once my beam has travelled halfway around the circumference, focus your beam on the place I start from, then follow my lead.”

  Stormaway closed his eyes to draw on his power. After a moment, a strong green ray of light sprang forth from the wizard’s hand. It travelled slowly in a large arc. Tarkyn followed with a bronze beam that moved slowly along the same path as the green one. As bronze ray travelled the last quarter of the circle, it crossed over and touched the green beam of power. There was a sharp thwack as they connected followed by a persistent thrumming that grew in intensity each time the rays crossed each other again. Soon, the intensity of the light and vibration drove Waterstone back into the shelter of the trees. As he watched, the bronze and green rays twisted themselves around each other, over and over again. As the green and bronze rays swept more and more quickly around the circumference, the thrumming became louder and higher in pitch until Waterstone imagined he could almost hear the earth screaming. The earth within the circle was trembling and small stones bounced up and down as each ray swept past. Suddenly the green ray snapped out, quickly followed by the bronze. An eerie silence filled the clearing.

  Waterstone and Tarkyn were both shaken by the intensity of the display of power, but Stormaway was quite matter-of-fact. “There. That should do it.” He stooped over the circle and effortlessly scooped up a handful of soil. “You see? We have shaken apart the connections between the particles of soil. It will take no time at all to clear this out. We could do it with our bare hands if we had to.” He looked from one to the other and added jauntily, “but I think we’ll leave it to those with shovels.” He frowned at the prince, who was looking a little wan, “Are you all right? “

  Tarkyn waved a hand, “I will be. I just need a rest after levitating myself here, then doing that.” He frowned irritably, “I’m getting bloody tired of being below strength.” He looked at Waterstone, “I seem to spend m
y entire life becoming tired and overtaxed. You people must think I’m a complete weakling.”

  “We do,” the woodman assured him, enjoying the shocked look from Stormaway that he spotted out of the corner of his eye. “‘Why can’t he hold up tree branches all night as well as all day’, we said to ourselves? ‘Why is he only holding up two at a time?’ we wondered. ‘Surely he could manage at least four?’ ‘Why didn’t he fight off all the wolves single-handedly and keep us from having to use up our arrows?’ We’ve talked of nothing else, ever since you got here.”

  “Very funny,” responded Tarkyn trenchantly.

  Waterstone smiled unrepentantly. “It’s probably just as well you’ve been sick. Otherwise we’d all have been frightened off by the extent of your power. Well,” he qualified, “we wouldn’t be allowed to be frightened off. At least some of us would have to stay and be terrified. But if you had carried on like you did the first day, we would all be quivering wrecks by now.”

  “And if you lot had carried on the way you did that first day, I’d be dead by now,” retorted Tarkyn.

  “Ah, but of course, that was before we realised that only you can have any sort of power in any confrontation between us. In our dealings with you, even our physical prowess has been effectively stripped from us by the oath.” Waterstone spoke lightly but there was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice.

  Suddenly the bantering had turned sour. Chagrin swept across the clearing and the woodman received a clear image of the prince pulling away from him.

  “I am sorry, Waterstone, if I have made you feel powerless,” Tarkyn said stiffly. “That has not been my intention. Since that first day, I have tried not to flaunt my power. If you remember, I even gave you permission to hit me at one point.” He ignored the strangled gurgle that emitted from the wizard, “I cannot undo the oath. If it chafes you so badly, I give you permission to leave so that it doesn’t continue to confront you. Others of the woodfolk can protect me.”