by Greg Curtis
Magic could be useful. But it would be far less useful if people knew he had it.
So like the others, he kept his secret. Though sometimes he wondered just how many others like him visited the Heartfire Temple. How many even knew it existed.
The Guardians who visited him with their sendings when the time for each new blessing arrived, kept telling him that there were other humans. But they'd told him nothing more than that. No matter how many times he asked. Really they'd never told him much at all. The first time they'd told him how to find the gate that led to the road to the Temple and what it would be able to show him. And of course they'd also warned him about the dangers of the Temple and the thrones – not that that had stopped him. But that was the last time they'd said much that was of any interest to him. The others who came to receive their blessings had told him more. But they didn't know much about humans or Althern. They couldn't tell him what he wanted to know.
Chy had to wonder how many other humans out there, wondered the same thing.
For the moment though, it didn't matter. His gift had been renewed and he felt strong. Up to the task of digging some more stones out of the river bed. Carrying on with his life. And making it better.
He would spend the next six months growing into his newest magic, and then return to the Temple. The only real question was which throne he would sit on next. He was thinking about advancing in Dominion. Not so much for the command of the creatures of the world – that didn't seem to work too well for him – but for the way he could use it to grow bigger, healthier crops. He liked having a bountiful garden and trees that practically burst with fruit. And people could never claim it was magic. If they wondered why his trees and gardens grew well he just told them it was the soil.
Chy also liked being able to build without nails and saws and joints. The logs from which his house was built, simply grew together. It was a much easier system of building, and much stronger. And no one looked.
Of course that led on to another thought. Maybe he could build on to the house! He'd been thinking about it for some time. He had no need of a third bedchamber – the two in the loft were plenty considering that he lived alone. But he had been considering extending the front of the house. Not for any practical purpose, but simply to make it look a little more proud and less box like and maybe have a little more room inside.
He had been thinking of it ever since Sana had left. And now that he'd seen her again and knew that any hope of her returning to him was gone, it seemed more important than before. She wanted – she had wanted – a man of means. And he had been unable to be that man for her. But other women would want the same thing, he guessed. And a house was a sign of that. A castle would have been better, but he couldn't build one of them. Still a proud cabin was better than a small, box like one.
Women liked gardens too. Ornamental ones with lots of flowers. Window boxes. Places to sit out in the sun and read or enjoy a cup of tea. He could do that. Maybe he could even start wearing some fine clothes – though he hated the thought.
After all he wasn't as young as he had been. He needed to have something to offer a potential wife. Or else be prepared to live the rest of his life alone. And he couldn't exactly offer them the prospect of a husband with the gift of magic. Any proper woman would run a hundred leagues from that.
Of course there was still his family to consider. Sana had liked that he had a house and earned an income, but his family had upset her. She did not want to be related to a family of bards and minstrels. They were one step above vagrants as far as she was concerned – and not a particularly big one.
He missed Sana though. She was warm and fun, even if she worried too much about her station in life. She was beautiful and passionate too. And now he was growing older and once more his hopes had been dashed. He had no one in his life.
Chy was still thinking about that when he heard the sound of hooves thumping slowly into the ground, and realised that someone was approaching.
He stood up straight in the river, stretched a little and then turned his attention to the path leading to his front door. And soon enough he saw his visitors approaching.
It was Mull and Myrtle, his neighbours. They had the house just a little further upstream of him, and popped in from time to time. Usually when they were on their way to town. He guessed it was another shopping day. They did a lot of shopping. They had to – they had four children and that was a lot of mouths to feed.
Fortunately they had plenty of silver. Mull was a skilled carpenter and he used the wheel on his workshop to power an incredible array of tools so he could turn out a nearly endless supply of tables and chairs. As he said, in this age of steam and electricity it was about volume. The day of the craftsman had passed.
“See Myrtle – I told you he'd be in the river!” Mull announced to the world with a huge grin on his face as he pulled the buggy to a halt. “The man's half fish!”
“And you're half cut!” Chy retorted happily.
“Better than completely blind!” Mull threw back at him.
“And now that you've both got the stupid out of your systems, we're off to town,” Myrtle interrupted them in the manner of a mother dealing with naughty children. “You need anything?”
“Thanks, but no. I only went there a couple of days ago.” And that was a trip he was trying to put behind him.
But really he tried to minimise his trips to Stonely. It was too hectic in the market, the prices in the shops were too dear, and the worst of it was that every housewife in the town seemed determined to marry their daughters off to him. The ones they couldn't marry off to anyone else. He'd never seen so many girls with pock marked faces, missing teeth, or the wits of stones. One girl had even been bald. The endless suggestions that he go to dinner with them drove him crazy. He didn't like being alone. He hated that Sana was with another man and now with child as well. But he liked even less being hunted by ambitious parents.
“We heard about that!” Mull announced with a chuckle. “Old Red said he'd never seen a man look more like a turkey ready for the pot!”
“Piss!” As if his life wasn't difficult enough! Now he was the subject of gossip. Chy decided then and there as he turned red that he wasn't going back to Stonely – ever!
“You know someone could have told me she was getting married!”
“Sorry. Thought you knew.” But even if that was true, it wasn't going to stop Mull enjoying a little fun at his expense. Though in fairness, he did try to hide it – somewhat – by pretending to play with the reins even as he grinned like a fool and choked as he tried to keep from laughing. Myrtle was at least a little better at being discreet, staring off into the distance as she kept her face carefully blank.
“So you don't want to see Hanson the Magnificent?” she eventually asked with a smile after her husband had finished laughing.
“Who?”
“The new wizard. He's turned up in town. They say he can make pigs disappear – and women's clothing!”
“Not another one!” Chy groaned. “The last one could make people disappear – and coin purses! Poxy bastard!” And often enough it seemed that these street performers were really just thieves with an act. Half of them seemed to bring a horde of cut purses with them. The family, he assumed. They were gypsie caravans by another name. And of course all their magic was just a trick. But then people said the same things about minstrels and bards like his family. So he supposed he shouldn't speak out of turn.
“They say he's an elf!” she added. “Got the ears and everything.”
“Balderdash! You know the ears will be rubber! Even a witling would know that!” There'd been more than a few who'd made that claim too. In a lot of cases their ears fell off in the middle of their acts. They were all shams. Another reason he never wanted to be known as a wizard.
“Aren't you cold in that river?” Mull suddenly asked.
“Freezing. But you get used to it. You know, not all of us can simply sit around all day in a nice war
m workshop with our feet up!”
“Huh! You say that again after you've put a chisel through your finger or worn your hands raw running a lathe!” Mull snorted. “You don't know what hard work is!”
He had a point Chy supposed. Most of his work he did while sitting in his home with his feet up. The water wheel actually did all the work for him. He just had to get a few buckets of sand and stones every few days. After that he could do nothing for a time. Just sit back, drink something warm and sit by the fire while the wheel turned. But he still had a garden to tend to and a house to look after. Life wasn't that easy.
Chy was about to throw something back at him when a crack of thunder unexpectedly shook the world. One so loud that it practically deafened him. And the strange thing was that it didn't seem to come from the air. It was in the ground. In the water too, which was rippling strangely all around him. And in fact it came from town.
“Balls!”
They all turned to stare at Stonely, though it was out of sight behind the walls of trees in the distance. But then the smoke started rising above them, and they realised the truth. It wasn't thunder at all. It was some sort of explosion.
But what sort of explosion was large enough to make the air and the land shake leagues away? And what had happened to Stonely? Because if it was this loud from as far away as they were and there was this much smoke rising above the town, up close it must be a thousand times worse. It had to be like standing in front of a cannon when it went off.
“You see anything?” he yelled at his visitors when his ears had stopped ringing. They shook their heads. And of course they couldn't. It was two or more leagues to the town, and there was a small forest between them.
But he thought as he waded out of the river and shook the water out of his boots, it would be good to find out what had happened. Just in case war had been declared and it was actually cannon fire. Not that he had any idea who they could be at war with. Stonely was right in the middle of Ruttland. You'd have to have already invaded half the kingdom to reach them.
Then he headed over to his friends who were sitting in their buggy at the end of his drive, and walked on by to the road. Road though was a polite word for what it was. It was actually a dirt track. Still it connected Charlton and Stonely. And people came out and graded it every year. Usually the prisoners from the town gaol. But at least from the road he could see a little further down the gently sloping hill through the trees and then across the farmlands to the edge of the town itself. But when he did it was a shock.
“Oh shit!” he whispered, staring in disbelief at Stonely. Or not at the town itself. That looked much as it normally did. It was the fire in the air above it that was unusual. A cloud that was floating maybe a couple of hundred paces above the town. But that wasn't the worst thing. There were shapes floating in the air between the cloud and the town. They were too far away to make out anything about them – in fact they looked like ants. But they had arms and legs – he was sure of it. And there were a lot of them.
How could that be? How could the people of the town be floating around, swimming through the air, seemingly struggling? Looking for something to grab on to?
“Is that … ?” Mull started to ask. Then he gave up and stared like Chy. Because he knew that there were no answers.
“I don't know,” Chy answered him. “But I wouldn't go into town today.”
“No.” Mull agreed. “I don't think we will.” And then the two of them just stood there, staring at what was plainly impossible.
“It's the Great Beast,” Myrtle announced when she joined them on the road. And she sounded certain.
But Chy wasn't nearly so sure. He didn't know what this was. Whether it was magic or science gone out of control. But he doubted very much that it had anything to do with the priests and their faith. They were all about the offerings, nothing more. All the faiths were. It didn't matter if it was the priests of Alder or Thumas or Pria or any of the others. None of them could be believed. He didn't tell her that though. If she wanted to believe, that was her business. And truly he couldn't really say what it was. He couldn't deny her claim.
“But what about the people?” Mull asked in time. “Those are people?”
Chy didn't answer him. They could all see them. The little tiny black figures swimming through the air. Struggling still. Probably trying to get down to the ground, before they fell to their deaths. And desperately trying not to float up into the slowly spinning cloud of fire above them. Fire was death.
“Maybe this is your Hanson the Magnificent?” Chy suggested eventually. “He really is a wizard?”
“And what sort of a bloody spell is this?!” Mull replied. “No one's going to pay him any coin to see it!”
Chy nodded in agreement. So did Myrtle, and he couldn't help but notice that a few others had come out onto the road to join them and see what was happening. They looked just as confused and horrified as them. And one of them even had a spyglass with him. He looked even more ill than the rest of them.
“Those are the townsfolk?” Chy asked him quietly, wanting to be sure.
“Yeah,” Old man Fargus replied as he peered through the device. “Screaming in fear. And some of the town's cats and dogs and horses. It's like they're on strings!”
“Strings? There anything we can do?”
“No.” Fargus shook his head. “Either they rise up and burn or they fall. One way or another they die.”
“Piss!” Chy swore quietly.
“A rope,” Myrtle suggested.
“I can't throw a rope fifty or a hundred paces up into the air,” Fargus answered her simply. “And anyone who tried could be sucked up with the rest anyway.”
He was right of course. Except that Chy realised that he could do something. And in fact he probably should do something. It was his responsibility, even if no one knew he had magic – or that in fact there was such a thing.
“I'm going to go and take a closer look,” he told the others, after thinking it through. And then before the others could talk him out of it, he set off down the road. No one followed him.
Of course it was a slow trip. He wasn't in a hurry to get too close to whatever was happening in Stonely. And he had to think carefully about whatever he was going to do. It was also a couple of leagues there.
It was the best part of an hour before he was close enough to see things clearly. And close enough to feel the magic flowing around him. In fact it was just in front of him, some sort of spell of portal. He could feel the magic against his skin. Like a charge in the air, making the hairs on his arms and head stand on end.
That surprised him. He'd assumed it would be some sort of spell of fire from what he'd been able to see. But it wasn't. The fire was coming from whatever world lay on the other side of the portal. Which when he thought about it, wasn't a good thing. Anything that could live in a world of fire, wasn't something he wanted to meet. And anyone who would open a portal to such a realm, he didn't want to know. Most of all, anyone who could create a portal that large was dangerous. What he was looking at was magic on a scale he'd never before seen.
But why was it so large? And why was it in the sky? That was what he couldn't understand. A portal was about travel. Who could travel through this? You could send an entire army through it – and then watch them fall to their deaths! Though that could be why the townsfolk were floating.
None of that mattered though. What did was that there were people he knew, people he did business with, people he'd grown up with, people he considered friends, floating around in the sky above him as if they were in some giant, slow moving whirlpool. Drifting slowly upwards heading for the portal and certain death in the flames. He could do something about that.
Chy checked quickly to make sure that no one was looking, but he knew he was safe. The only ones anywhere near him were the townsfolk floating slowly in the sky above him – and they weren't interested in him. And then he summoned a breeze. It didn't have to be much of a breeze, just enough
to get them all floating in his direction, away from the portal above them. If he could get them far enough away, he thought, he could save them.
And it worked! Not completely. Those who were higher up, too close to the massive portal, were too strongly held in its grip to be blown away by a breeze. But the rest responded.
Soon he had hundreds and then thousands of people floating slowly towards him. And better still as soon as they emerged from underneath the glowing fiery portal, they started sinking. Heading for the ground. That wasn't magic. It was its absence. The portal had been lifting them up, pulling them towards it, and gravity had been pulling them down. Once they were free from the portal's grip, they descended.