Damnedest first date I’ve ever had.
Chapter Four
Zagor The Hedgemage
After leaving Sagal’s and Ela’s farmstead, Tyndal and I rode all day and into the night, and just as the waxing crescent moon was at its zenith we finally pulled our horses off the road and into a copse of woods on the outskirts of the hamlet of Malin.
Malin is so small it almost didn’t have outskirts. It’s smaller than Minden’s Hall, not more than a few hundred people who lived in a score of neatly thatched stone cottages in a rough circle around the road. A tall, thick hedge surrounded the hamlet, more to keep children and chickens in the hamlet than to keep invaders out.
But the lone cottage we sought was not inside the hedge that offered the illusion of protection for the village; it was within what the locals call “pissing distance”, up a steep and rocky incline to the north of the hamlet. It took almost an hour to reach it, it was so remote from Malin.
It was a squat, one-room affair of timber, stone, and daubed clay, with a neatly trimmed swath cleared around it. To the south side I could see an herb garden and a well house, and the intoxicating smell of wood smoke, freshly harvested herbs and goat droppings filled the air.
“Are we there yet?” my smart-mouthed apprentice said for the tenth time that night. His boredom and exhaustion had worn through his patience and changed his demeanor. Not for the better.
“Close enough,” I said, tiredly. I was tempted to use a spell to refresh myself, but the past few days had drained me to the point where I was loathe to attempt it on my own. The witchstone was calling me to use its power for the spell, but I resisted. There was something menacing about it. And that humming megalithic monument had scared me. Not enough to keep from molesting Alya in a field, but enough.
While Tyndal was seeing to the horses I approached the cottage – and almost walked straight into a trap. Cursing, I raised my magesight and studied the ring of wards and glyphs that spun around the simple hut like a golden garland around a pig’s neck. They were all homemade, of course; they didn’t have the familiar and recognizable shapes and feel of Imperial-style sorcery, but they were effective nonetheless.
“Hey, Zagor!” I called, cupping my hands around my mouth. It took a few moments, but soon the little door opened and a large – and I mean huge – black dog sprinted out at me. He sniffed me heartily for a moment, unsure about whether or not my intestines needed ripping out, but in the end I guess he recognized me from the last time I had been here. He wagged his tail twice with a heavy thud and allowed his tongue to sprawl out lazily from the side of his mouth.
While I gingerly scratched behind his ears his master, dressed in a soft fur wrap, came to the door.
“Minalan, if this is another one of your middle-of-the-night drunken visits, I’d just as soon you went and bothered someone else,” he said, tiredly. “I’ve been up all evening trying to cure Goodwife Kasa’s baby’s colic, and have no time for your revelry.”
Zagor was an old man, perhaps in his sixties. His beard and hair were still black, and his eyes were merry even as he complained, but the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth showed his age. He was large, over six feet tall, and burly, built more like a lumberjack than a mage. But the Talent doesn’t discriminate about such things. He had it in spades, and a lifetime of learning – on his own, mind you – about how to use it.
Zagor was a native to the Boval Valley, having been born to the parents of trappers in a high-mountain homestead. He once told me that his mama let him chew on kellisarth twigs while he was teething and he’d had the Talent since he was six years old. He had been apprenticed to the only mage in the valley, at the time, and when the old man died, Zagor took over his clients. He had been doing the simple work of a hedgemage ever since.
What’s the difference between a hedgemage and a spellmonger? Not much.
Traditionally, a spellmonger has a shop and sells his services to people in the village as a proper merchant or artisan. A hedgemage, on the other hand, usually lives just outside the village (usually just behind the hedge – hence the name) and sells the same sorts of spells.
More technically, I suppose, you could say that hedgemagi are not trained in the classic Imperial methods, don’t rely on texts and books, and pretty much make it up as they go along, while a spellmonger almost always has recourse to at least the most elementary texts for reference. As they are also rarely licensed to practice, they are therefore also technically illegal.
The Royal Censorate of Magic spent a good part of its time and resources rounding up such un-warranted magi for punishment. That was one of the reasons I had left more civilized parts and headed for the remote regions of the Duchies. The nearest Censor was probably no closer than Vorone.
But unlike many of my snobbish Academy-trained colleagues, I don’t believe that they have any less power than we do; their biggest difficulty comes in working with other magi. The standardization of Academy training is based on using the powers of several magi in concert, while hedgemagi, because of their unique training, techniques and talents, can rarely pool their powers as effectively.
There is also the matter of trade secrets – Zagor and I were on pretty good terms, but I’d seen villages where hedgemagi jealously guarded even the simplest of spells to keep the dragon’s share of clients. I often wondered what kind of magi Zagor would have become if he had had the benefit of my schooling.
“No, old man,” I said, friendly as I could, “I come on business, and have not a dram of wine about me.” That wasn’t entirely true – I keep a flask of winter wine for emergencies – but the last time I was here would have been memorable had I not been so drunk I couldn’t remember it. “Can we come, my apprentice and I, and beg a fire and a stretch of dry floor?”
He glanced at Tyndal and me (no doubt using his own version of magesight) and grunted his assent. With a casual toss of his hand a half-dozen of his protective wards came down and his dog (whose name, I suddenly remembered, was Blue) escorted us inside.
The interior of Zagor’s hut was crammed to the rafters with herbs and other ingredients. In a hamlet this small he had to be his own herbalist and apothecary, of course. There was none of the mystical crap that adorned Garkesku’s shop – or my own, actually – just a few skulls and interesting rocks. Zagor was in the business of making magic, and he did so without fanfare. People knew what he did, and how well, and he didn’t need to advertise or impress anyone.
He kicked a few stools out from under a table and threw another log on the embers in the fireplace. When we had seated ourselves, the flames from the fire illuminated the room enough to see each other’s faces. Zagor took a moment to toss Blue a strip of rawhide before he grabbed an earthenware jug, took a sip, and passed it to me.
I tipped it up and drank a few swallows of the cold, clear cider that was just beginning to go hard before I passed it to Tyndal. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and grunted in approval.
“Now, young man, just what brings you all the way up here to disturb an old man’s sleep?” he asked, his tone belying his strong words. He was happy to see me, I could tell, but he couldn’t let the grumpy old man persona slip. I wished the situation had been less important.
“Nothing good, I’m afraid. The night before last, Minden’s Hall was beset by gurvani raiders, almost two hundred of them. We were nearly overtaken, had it not been for the timely arrival of Sire Koucey and his knights. Forty or so were killed.”
“’Tis about time for another raid, I suppose,” he grunted gloomily. “There hasn’t been an attack in almost twenty years. The furries are stirring, no doubt. I’ve seen the signs.”
“So I have been told. But this one was no chicken-stealing raid. There was a shaman with them who cut through my wards like a knife through cheese. He carried this,” I said, taking the little bag from around my neck and tossing it to him.
Garkesku I wouldn’t trust to even hold the thing, so greedy was the little twit. Zagor wouldn’t
covet it, though. He was wiser in his teens than Garkesku would ever be.
“Witchstone,” the hedgemage said, without a trace of emotion or surprise. He didn’t even take it out of the bag, at first. “Large one, too. Rare it is that they grow to that size.” He unwrapped the tiny bundle until the stone spilled out into his palm. His face contorted with thought.
“That’s why I came here, to seek your advice on it. What do you make of it? Was this an isolated incident or do we have to worry about more raids?”
Zagor was silent for a while as he probed the gem and set it glowing with a soft green light. I waited for sweat to break on his brow, as it had with mine, but he completed the task with no more visible effort than he had made lifting the cider jug.
“We have trouble,” he said, finally, his eyes reflecting his tiredness in the fading glow. “There will be more raids, more death, more fighting. And more witchstones,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
“More? How do you know? Did your probe reveal-- ”
“Look,” he said, holding up the stone. “All the surfaces are smooth and clear . . . except this one. This flat area here,” he said, pointing at the stone, “this shows that the witchstone was once part of a larger piece, and was broken off.”
“Larger?” I asked, amazed.
“Much,” Zagor agreed. “The stone that this came from was perhaps the size of my head. Maybe larger.”
“How can you tell that?” I asked, mystified. Tyndal just stared at the wizened old man, his mouth agape.
“In my probe I saw the bands of the stone. Witchstones build up in layers, usually, like an onion. In this one the layers are very wide, not narrow like they would be if this stone formed on its own.”
“But a piece of irionite that big is impossible!”
“Nothing is impossible,” Zagor countered, a smile in his voice.
“Zagor, I appreciate your wisdom, but you must realize that a piece of irionite even as big as that fragment is rare, almost unheard of. To find one any larger would be the find of a century, perhaps the biggest magical discovery since the fall of the Magocracy!”
“The stone does not lie,” he said, simply. “And you do not know everything, Spellmonger.” With that he set down the witchstone and pulled a similar bag from around his neck. Moving almost reverently, he pulled another piece of irionite out of it.
It was as big as a hen’s egg.
I was astonished, and it showed. The few irionite particles that the Censorate held were miniscule, yet obscenely powerful. The tiny fragment that the Mad Mage had used against us had been overwhelming. The gem I gleaned from the fist of a dead gurvani shaman was likely powerful enough to destroy the valley and everyone in it, should its power be unleashed fully.
But Zagor the Humble Hedgemage wore around his neck a stone that could have bought him a Duchy. Or conquered a few.
“These things are not unknown in the mountains,” he said, casually. With a pass of his hand the stone burst into illumination, and suddenly the air in the cabin was thick with magic. I realized just how those tough wards had got there. “My father found this stone in a brook, and set it in my crib when I was a child. He saw it as a gift from Trygg to bless his family. It sings with me, now.”
“Zagor, do you realize . . .”
“Minalan, I know what power is here. I am not that old or that foolish. This stone has been my companion since I was an infant. I know it as well as I know my own mind. Yet what great feats of magic could I perform that would make the lives of my people better? I use it when I must, that is all. To do otherwise would betray Trygg’s gift.”
I sighed, and the glow subsided. Zagor carefully wrapped up his stone and put it away before handing mine to me. I was still stunned.
“Actually Zagor, I came up here on my way to visit the Alka Alon, but you seem to have answered my questions for me. It looks like the gurvani will continue to move against us. I guess we can skip the Tree Folk and head back south.”
“No, Spellmonger, don’t do that,” he insisted. “The Tree Folk know far, far more about the witchstones than I do. They showed me how to use mine better. They have used them since the beginning of time. They will answer the questions you don’t even know to ask.”
“Just how common are these things?” I asked. Zagor shrugged.
“Tomorrow, ask the Tree Folk. Tonight, you must rest. We have a difficult journey ahead, and you will need your rest.”
* * *
The next morning the previous night’s revelations felt like a dream. But I knew that the bulge under Zagor’s jerkin was real. The old man seemed to have grown mightier than I remembered him. I had a new respect for a man who had that kind of power at his command and still had the willpower to not use it casually.
He woke us with the sounds and smells of frying bacon, hot cereal, tea, and a warm loaf of dark bread almost as good as what my father made. When we went to saddle the horses we found a third beast, a shaggy mountain pony, already loaded next to them. I raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“You are going to accompany us, then.”
“Aye,” Zagor grunted, pulling on a long bearskin cloak. “This danger threatens the entire valley. Perhaps the worst ever. The counsel of the Tree People will be telling.”
I shrugged as he made a casual wave of his hand and set the wards on his house. They were so strong, I noticed, that you could feel them and almost see them without magesight. I shuddered involuntarily, knowing why.
We went through the village and up a steep trail that climbed the gradient of the mountain at a dangerous clip. It was only a ridgelet, Zagor told us, a final hill before the little valley of the Tree People, but it seemed pretty steep to me. I guess it discouraged casual visitors.
Just over the ridge the forest of the Alka Alon spread out before us. It was a lighter shade of green, I noticed, than the forest that skirted the western mountain spur at the middle of the valley, or the majestic and uncut woods in the sparsely inhabited region in the very southern end.
The trees were a mix of deciduous and evergreen, and a very intoxicating aroma seemed to waft up from it. Zagor led us down the back side of the ridge, where the trail petered out, and stopped at a lone tree that stood about fifty yards from the edge of the forest proper. And then we waited.
“What are we waiting for?” I wanted to know.
“Use your wizard eyes,” he said, pointing. I slipped into magesight and studied the edge of the forest. I saw a wild tangle of overlapping wards and spells that would have prevented an army from passing through. I didn’t recognize most of the forms, but I knew a strong defense when I saw it. There was easily enough power in that magical fence than I had ever seen at the Academy or even guarding the Citadel of Farise.
It indicated a culture that refreshed the wards for such a long period that they had become part of the landscape itself. The trees, I noticed, were part of the defense, each tree on the frontier a veritable magical tower against intruders. I whistled in appreciation and tried to explain to Tyndal what I saw.
“How do we let them know we are here?” my apprentice asked in a hushed voice.
“They knew the moment we crossed the ridge line,” Zagor said. “The Tree People are subtle, lad. They will let us wait here while they prepare a proper welcome, then they will send a guide to take us through the forest.”
Sure enough, less than five minutes later a solitary Alka Alon strode out of the forest to stop at the base of the tree. He was naked, of course, save for a belt upon which was a pouch and quiver, and a bow that was slung across his back. He stood four feet tall and weighed maybe forty or fifty pounds. His skin was a pale and mottled greenish tint, and his hair was the darkest black. He looked up at us, one at a time, and lingered longest on Zagor. While he was staring Blue came up and sniffed his butt, and I almost fell off my horse laughing.
Luckily, I didn’t offend the little man, who also found it funny. He patted the grateful dog on the head and finally spoke.
“We bless you, young Zagor, and your friends,” he said in the common tongue, his accent perfect. “What brings you to our eaves?”
“We seek the wisdom of the Aronin, milord,” Zagor answered solemnly. “We have questions we hope he might answer.”
The little man considered for a moment. “You, young Zagor, we have met before. Who are your companions?” It was strange hearing Zagor, who is old enough to be my grandfather, called “young,” but the Tree People live a long, long time.
“This is Minalan, a mage from the East, who has come to serve the people of the valley, and this is his apprentice Tyndal, who was born here. They seek the Aronin’s wisdom concerning the gurvani.”
The smile faded from the Tree Person’s face. “I see. My name is Ardrey, Watcher of the southern eaves. I will guide you into the heart of our land. Stray not from the path, lest you find yourself lost. And perform no magic without permission, lest you upset our own works.”
Fair enough, I thought. Not only was it common magical courtesy, but after seeing that ward system I didn’t want to accidentally spring anything nasty on us.
Ardrey led us along a pathway through the outer eaves that I’d swear before Trygg and Briga that wasn’t there an instant before. Crossing into that forest was like entering an entirely different world.
How to describe it? Words don’t do it justice. Human words, at any rate. The air is richer than even clean mountain air, with the scents of loams and mosses and flowers. Despite the overhanging boughs there was plenty of light, though it took on a softer, more golden tone. There was little underbrush, unlike more mundane forests, and the little that poked up from the clear forest floor was arranged like little gardens. There was almost no deadwood to be seen, although I saw at least one fallen tree that had been left in the clearing it had made. It seemed more like art than firewood, though.
And the spells. Strange spells, wrought of alien shapes and organic looking contours, both wild and at the same time utterly ordered. Some of them seemed to be encouraging plants to grow, or water to flow, and some I suspected had been hung where they were purely for art’s sake.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 01 - Spellmonger Page 12