The mage would have enjoyed watching the change of seasons in the fields north of the castle while he worked. Considering the spell he was trying to cast now, a direct view of the fields would have been a far sight handier. Still, he had an adequate, if uninspiring view of the colorful autumn landscape on the other side of the castle through the magical mirror he had been given years ago by the wizard Belize.
His gaze roamed from the shelves of spell components to the palm-sized shard of mirror on his desk. Through it, he could see that rain and fog hung like dirty gray cotton over the rolling fields of spelt, maize, and rye between the castle and the village of Thonvil. The foul weather had arrived just before harvest some six days ago and remained tenaciously. It now threatened to rot a summer’s worth of work in the fields.
Guerrand saw signs that the tuatha dundarael had tried to harvest the crops, but the mood of small faerie folk seemed tied to weather conditions. In gloomy weather, they, too, were gloomy and unproductive. And so the crops were still in the fields. All things considered, it was the first truly bad stretch of luck Thonvil had endured since Guerrand had returned with Bram to restore the village and castle some five years before.
Unfortunately, that very record was what was making Guerrand nervous. He had seen things begin to slip in the last two years. Things easily overlooked, like stones tumbled from walls and left where they fell, or haystacks with rot at their centers. Kirah and Maladorigar were doing their best, and a very commendable job at that. The gnome worked day and night to invent a contraption that would both husk and dry corn five times more quickly than by hand, but Guerrand wasn’t holding out much hope for it.
The fact remained that neither of them had Bram’s skill when it came to inspiring villagers, or the tuatha, for that matter. It had not been all that long since Kirah had been known as the beggarly DiThon who pined for the lover who never appeared. And Maladorigar was a gnome, which said it all concerning his ability to motivate humans.
Two years was a long time for the lord to be gone, particularly in Thonvil. The villagers had just got used to having an active lord after two decades of neglect. Bram was still on his crusade of sorts, searching for the tuatha mother he’d never known he had. Though very accepting of magic, the villagers had not been told the actual nature of Bram’s crusade, nor had his human mother Rietta. Instead they’d been told that Bram had been called away north, to Gwynned, by the emperor. But some people were beginning to speak aloud that an emperor who is concerned about his subjects should allow their lord to return and oversee his land.
Not everyone had embraced Bram or his new policies. There were few malcontents in Thonvil, but every village suffered those who lived to find fault with the local lord. The mage knew it was only a matter of time before more people noticed the slight decline in conditions and blamed them on Bram’s absence. Mercadior himself would soon begin to inquire too closely into the nature of Bram’s absence.
No one knew that dilemma better than the mage. Guerrand himself had been blamed for Thonvil’s decline not once, but twice. The first time was when he’d left to become a mage. Guerrand’s own brother had blamed him when a neighboring lord led an attack on Castle DiThon.
The second time had been during the plague of snakes—the medusa plague, as it had come to be called. This horrid affliction first turned a victim’s arms and legs to snakes before turning the entire body to stone. Lyim Rhistadt, the mage responsible for spreading this curse, had also planted the idea that Guerrand had brought the medusa plague down upon the heads of the villagers.
Guerrand had spent years earning back the trust lost through lies and superstitions. He couldn’t let distrust for Bram set in while his nephew was away.
Two long years. Guerrand wondered sometimes, in the stillness of his firelit chamber, if his nephew was well, or if he intended to ever return. He had tried to contact Bram magically once, but the spell hadn’t succeeded. The mage had assumed it had failed because he hadn’t enough information about Bram’s location to direct the magical energy properly. And so Guerrand still waited for word.
His glance snapped back to the spellbook. “None of that will matter if we starve to death this winter—which is precisely what will happen if I don’t stop this bloody rain.”
The mage unfolded himself from the chair and stood on tiptoe to retrieve the jar of incense, adding another container of fuller’s earth, and one more with some interestingly twisted twigs Guerrand had gathered on walks. He set them on his desk, then ladled water from the washstand into a small glass dish.
The mage peered briefly into the mirror to reaffirm that farmers waited under Kirah’s direction for a break in the drenching weather. He saw his sister at the fore of a three-sided shed, dirty blond hair pulled back into a tail, arm propped up on a sickle as she peered at the sky. Bless her, Guerrand thought, for trying to lead the people as Bram had. The lord would have been out with them in the mud, too, ready to chop maize with the villagers.
Just then Kirah appeared to wave toward Guerrand, as if she could read his thoughts or feel his gaze through the mirror. If anyone could, it would be his sister. They had grown closer than ever since his return to Thonvil, particularly in Bram’s absence. Any resentment she had once harbored against Guerrand for leaving to study magic seemed to have disappeared.
Only Kirah knew what her brother was attempting in his laboratory. They had agreed she should round up the village men, telling them only that travelers had reported the weather breaking to the west and they should be at the ready. Though there was no longer a stigma regarding magic in Thonvil, Guerrand saw no point in advertising its use, particularly if the spell should fail.
Guerrand sprinkled a handful of incense into another small dish. Using a length of wick, he set the incense to flame from the burner on his desk. The air filled with the thick, pungent scent of myrrh and pine, so strong it made the mage cough. Holding a cloth to his nose, he poured a small scoop of fuller’s earth into the water, stirring it with a stick from the jar. He drew a deep breath through his mouth, then dropped the cloth from his nose.
Guerrand uttered the incantation and stepped back in case the fuller’s earth bubbled out of the bowl. Instead, the mud plopped twice, a dull, brief boil at best. The thick finger of smoke trailing from the incense bowl lurched suddenly, as if a strong wind had burst through the gallery.
Guerrand looked expectantly out the bank of windows to the sky above the sea. He had specified clear weather with a moderate, southerly wind for drying out the soggy landscape. Though uncommon at this time of year, such a day was not impossible; Northern Ergoth often enjoyed one glorious week of unseasonably warm weather each autumn, known as barbarian summer.
Lightning ripped a seam through the thick black and silver clouds. Contrary to nature, the wind blew both east and west from that jagged white line, chasing the clouds away. Behind was revealed a small, hopeful band of blue sky.
Guerrand felt an adrenalin rush at seeing that the magical energy had been successfully directed and released. He could equate the feeling only to physical love. Guerrand had known mages in Palanthas who practiced the Art simply to feel that wave of hypnotic power over and over again. They cared less for the outward effect of their magic than its inward, physiological manisfestation.
Today as always, however, Guerrand was more interested in the effect, so he turned his mind from the wave rising inside him. His intense gaze turned down into a frown as he realized the transformation in the sky was stopping as quickly as it had begun. The contrary wind ceased, the blue seam filled again with rain-soaked clouds. The sea returned to a dark reflection of the angry black sky.
Guerrand sank into his chair, stunned. He was at a loss to explain what had gone wrong. The spell clearly had worked at first. But then it stopped, as if someone had blown out the magical fire that charged it. He had never encountered quite such an effect before. There was always a chance that a spell wouldn’t work, but this one had started out so well. What, or who, ha
d stopped it?
The mage’s eyes traveled reluctantly to the hated black thumbprint that had marred the left hem of whatever he wore since he’d made a deal with Nuitari. The god of evil magic had so marked Guerrand to remind him of the debt he owed for turning the black moon on its side, thus stopping the medusa plague. Was Nuitari calling in the debt? Guerrand immediately discounted that possibility. He knew the day to pay would come, but a god of Nuitari’s magnitude would surely charge him more than a little weather spell.
Snatching up the spellbook again, he reread the entry for controlling the weather. After a few moments, he leaned back and set the book down, still puzzled. He believed he had followed the directions to the letter. The incantation was straightforward, despite its length. He had cast many shorter spells that were much more demanding. Still, there were many places where a mistake could have occurred.
But Guerrand did not consider himself just any mage. There were, in fact, few spells he thought beyond his ability. Perhaps that was the problem. Had he been fooled by appearances? Had pride caused him to take the spell too lightly?
The mage gathered another round of the ingredients, then attempted the spell again with great concentration and attention to detail. He closed his eyes as he repeated the arcane words that would release the spell.
Superstition kept Guerrand’s eyes tightly closed. He didn’t want to see the previous results repeated, feel the surge of power from anticipated success, only to have his hopes dashed. He heard lightning snap outside, and still he didn’t open his eyes. When he could stand it no longer, he cracked one eye and gazed into the magical mirror. The sky was bright blue, the dark clouds a thin line on the horizon. The fields were already alive with men and women with sickles, slashing at corn stalks and sheaves of spelt.
Guerrand spotted his wiry little sister and smiled broadly. The spell had worked. He was at a loss to explain it, but the spell had chased the clouds away.
He leaned back in exhaustion and relief. Under Kirah’s watchful eye, the farmers would not waste a minute of the cleared skies.
Though relieved, Guerrand felt something nagging at the back of his mind. He might have been more deliberate in his spellcasting, but he was certain he had performed the spell the same way twice. Still, magic was a precise and demanding art.…
Had he become so complacent in Thonvil’s restored-to-prosperity atmosphere that his skills were slipping? It had happened to him once, back before his service at Bastion, when he and Maladorigar had lived in the village of Harrowdown-on-the-Schallsea. How long had it been since he’d felt his skills taxed? When was the last time he’d had his confidence in his magical abilities shaken? Guerrand realized in a flash that it was the last time he’d had the Dream, before he’d returned to Thonvil. He’d been free of the Dream for more than two years.… Did this glitch in his spellcasting signal the Dream’s return? He hoped with all his heart it did not.
Guerrand didn’t place tremendous store in dreams, but this one had haunted and hounded him for years, ever since his Test in the Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth. In the Dream, as in his Test, he was thrust into the role of Rannoch, legendary wizard of the Black Robes. Centuries ago, the Kingpriest had tried to break the power of the Orders of Magic by closing down their towers. But Rannoch had refused to surrender the great symbols of magic to the charlatan Kingpriest. Instead, as his brother wizards withdrew from the tower at Palanthas, Rannoch cursed the tower as he leaped to his death from the parapet.
More times than he could remember, Guerrand had woken in a sweat, sure that he was dead from the fall that seemed so vivid in his sleep. But when Guerrand returned from Bastion to Thonvil, the dreams stopped. And Guerrand, frightened lest they begin again, tried for years simply not to think about it.
Esme, Guerrand’s former lover, had said the Dream symbolized Guerrand’s insecurity about his magical skills. But Guerrand always believed there was a deeper meaning to the recurring memory, one he had yet to learn. Frankly, in the absence of the Dream, Guerrand had stopped looking for it.
What was the point? Not only was he the most powerful mage in Thonvil, he was the only one. Now that it was out, he could not silence the concern that he had let his skills grow soft. Yet he couldn’t see anything on the horizon to change his circumstances. At least until Bram came home and resumed his duties as lord.
* * * * *
Guerrand’s fears were only heightened when, over the course of the following days, similar magical misfires happened more and more. The simplest incantations, spells that he had used since his earliest magic-wielding days, were failing. When it was something simple, like a magical light going out after only a few moments, it was troubling. But it was cause for alarm when Guerrand cast a spell of flight on himself to get a bird’s-eye view of the surrounding territory and the spell failed in midflight. Fortunately, he had cast another spell that broke his fall, and that spell had worked, or he would now be dead or seriously injured. He spoke with Kirah about it one crisp afternoon in the topiary garden.
Guerrand had been settling himself for a rest in his chamber when he happened to glance out the second-floor window and spot her below on a bench. The sparse groves of trees that dotted the landscape about Thonvil were ablaze with the colors of autumn. Bright yellow crab apple leaves drifted, with the rhythm of the wind, down around her.
Taking up his mug of spiced cider, the mage decided to join his sister. They’d had little time to talk of late, what with the harvest. She seldom stayed in one place long, so consuming were her duties in Bram’s absence. Guerrand hurried down the curving staircase and through the foretower before Kirah could slip away.
Despite Guerrand’s magical troubles, his weather spell had held out long enough for the villagers to harvest the bulk of the crops. Maize was drying in sheds and barns; spelt and other grains were waiting at the mill for grinding. The village was quieter than usual, the people recovering from the frenzy and beginning preparations for the annual festival of the harvest.
Guerrand stepped into the serenity of Bram’s topiary garden of herbs and evergreens and sighed with pleasure. The heady aroma of rosemary alone was almost therapeutic. By unspoken agreement, the garden was being cared for by the tuatha. They faithfully maintained the shrubs originally shaped by Bram into birds, animals, castles, and mythical beasts.
Kirah sat with her feet up on a stone bench, back-to-back with a squirrel shaped of rosemary. It looked beastly uncomfortable to Guerrand, but Kirah seemed not to notice the branches in her back. Every time she shifted, waves of dark, fragrant scent filled the air.
She looked up when Guerrand sat on the stone bench opposite her. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Good thoughts, I hope.” He could feel the coolness of the stone through the folds of his red robe. Guerrand shifted until he found a comfortable position.
Even though the heavy work was over, Kirah still wore simple farming clothes. Her pale blue eyes were rimmed with dark circles, yet they sparkled as if lit from within. “You look tired,” he observed.
“I am,” she confessed, crossing her arms with a satisfied sigh. “But it’s a good feeling. The crops are in, and we can relax a little now.” She chuckled and shook her head. “All except Maladorigar, that is.”
“His drying contraption?”
“It blew up again,” she supplied. “By the time he gets it running, the corn will have dried on its own. That’s what I’m hoping anyway.”
Guerrand squinted at his sister. “You weren’t thinking of the gnome and his machine moments ago,” he accused gently. “I saw your face from my window above. Your mind was miles from here.”
“It was—in time, if not space,” she admitted. “I was just realizing how much things have changed for us in the last decade. Ten years ago we were both desperate to get out of Thonvil.” She gave a bittersweet smile. “Even five years ago I saw nothing but hopelessness here.”
“And now we happily work to maintain the place we thought we hated.”
Kirah’s blond head shook in mild disbelief. “It just goes to prove we can’t predict what’s around the next corner. I like not knowing,” she confessed. “The uncertainty makes waking up worthwhile. I tell myself, ‘maybe something unexpected will happen today’.”
“No regrets?”
Her shoulders, now wiry with muscles from work in the fields, lifted into her trademark shrug. “Little things perhaps, like why didn’t I go to Gwynned to study or attend court, or failing that, why didn’t I run away as a merchant seaman on one of Berwick’s ships. Nothing big. At least nothing that I’d take the opportunity to go back and change.”
Guerrand watched her closely over the rim of his steaming mug. “Not even marriage?”
His sister’s work-tanned face lost its brightness for an instant so brief, only Guerrand would have noticed. “No one that I cared to marry ever asked me,” she said in a clipped voice. “How can I regret a choice I was never given?”
She saw his skeptical expression and scoffed. “You can’t be thinking of that old dolt Rietta arranged for me to marry while you were away in Palanthas.”
“I wasn’t.”
She examined his face. It was inscrutable as always, a trait that seemed to increase with his immersion in magic. “Look, I know you think I had some schoolgirl crush on Lyim Rhistadt, but the fact of the matter is, I didn’t. I confess to being lonely and gullible both times he came to Thonvil to see me, but that’s all!”
Annoyed, Kirah jumped up from the bench and began to pluck dead purple flowers from the last of the fall basil. “You never did tell me what became of Lyim after he poisoned Thonvil with the medusa plague.”
“I don’t know for certain,” confessed Guerrand. “The last time I saw Lyim, he was in Bastion and the walls were crashing around our heads. The conclave of twenty-one wizards all suspected he escaped back to the Prime Material Plane with his hand restored.”
The Seventh Sentinel Page 12