Lesson of the Fire

by Eric Zawadzki

  Hand pressed to his temple to ward off the headache, Sven adjourned the meeting. As he shuffled to his offices, he smiled grimly. Volund had chosen the path Sven had laid for him. Yver Verlren of Piljerka, Wolber Verden of Gunne and Borya Zaghaf of Skrem always voted with him. Gruber was neatly in his pocket if only because he needed Domus to pay its debts more than Sven needed to repay Wasfal. Duxess Glyda Zaun of Pidel was, as usual, an enigma. And Volund voted against Sven no matter what the subject was.

  The easiest solution was to get rid of Flasten. Would Volund be surprised to hear, while his army was in Piljerka, that Domus had taken the Duxy of Flasten?

  And while Nightfire and Brack sat as judge and executor of the Unwritten Laws, they had no vote on amendments to it. As long as Sven did not break the Law, neither of them could challenge his authority.

  “I am reminded of your return to Rustiford, Mardux.”

  Sven jumped when he heard the Traveller’s voice. He turned around and saw the man sitting on the couch in the corner, playing with one of Asa’s toys.

  “I have no time for stories,” Sven said and coughed. He surprised himself by sitting heavily in his chair. A cough? When was the last time I was sick?

  “You are pushing yourself too hard. Your wife and daughter miss you.”

  “Do not mention them. It is too much you know who and where they are.”

  Energy made the fire blaze high in the hearth and lit all the candles. Power shuffled books and papers, rolled maps and charts in a swirl of paper until the desk was clear. Sven fell into a fit of coughing.

  “Perhaps it will cheer you up,” Pondr said, and began.

  Sven’s glared at the fire, but his eyelids drooped, and his mind followed the story.

  * * *

  Sven stepped out of the underbrush and into the clear area that surrounded Rustiford’s palisade. He took a deep breath, inhaling the faint whiff of hearth smoke. He had almost forgotten that smell he had left behind eight long years ago. Smelling it now made him nervous. Even more than the fear he would not recognize the people he grew up with, Sven feared they wouldn’t recognize him or wouldn’t trust him. That dread sat in his stomach like a lump of cold clay.

  He had been a different person then. The wizards of Nightfire’s Academy called him Sven Takraf, but here they would still remember him as Gematsud after his mother — the name his father had taken for love of her. He pulled the green cloak of a first-degree wizard tighter around his shoulders as Heliotosis, the north wind, tugged at it, and walked calmly toward the palisade gate.

  “Halt, wizard,” called a voice from behind the palisade. Sven recognized it as Glum’s — a boy two years his junior. “Who’re you, an’ why’re you here?”

  No longer a boy, Sven corrected himself. All my peers and playmates are adults, now.

  “I’m Sven Gematsud, son of Pitt Gematsud. I’ve returned after eight years of enslavement to the wizard known as Nightfire.”

  “You don’t look like Sven.” Glum sounded suspicious. “Don’t soun’ like him, either.”

  Sven set his jaw. He couldn’t say he hadn’t expected something like this. Eight years was a long time, especially when you spent it at a wizard’s academy while your friends spent it fighting to survive in a small town in ravit territory.

  He forced himself to revert to his old dialect, the one Weard Kruste had all but flayed out of him. “Brin’ my father to the gate. He’ll remem’er me.”

  “Can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Sven would have been less shocked to find his hometown under siege by gobbels or occupied by an army of Flasten magocrats. Grief and regret washed over him, as well as completely irrational anger.

  “How?” he asked, surprised by how cool and steady his voice sounded.

  “Ravit attack. He took a dart i’the back, an’ poison killed him.”

  Just like that, Sven thought, numb. That’s how we live out here. How I used to live. No time to care if we’re ignorant, uneducated and poor. It is enough that we are alive at all.

  “Who’s at the gate?” asked a second voice from within the walls.

  “Some wizard says he’s Sven Gematsud.”

  “Finn!” Sven shouted. “Finn, tell him I’m tellin’ the truth.”

  “Is he?” Glum asked.

  A new eye peered through the lookout hole. “Yeah. Open the gate, Glum.”

  “But he’s … ”

  “He’s comin’ home like th’others did. We’ve been over this. Open it.”

  A bolt moved and the wooden gate swung open to reveal a much larger Rustiford than Sven remembered.

  Finn’s unshaven face regarded him. Sven saw tension there, but among all the other faces that peered at him from the doors and windows of nearby houses, Finn’s was the friendliest.

  “Are the others here?” Sven asked. The town was larger, but seemed less well-kept than he remembered. He could smell the foulness of refuse mingled with the hearth smoke, and his nose wrinkled. He had forgotten about that.

  “No,” Finn said as the gate swung shut behind them. “You aren’t welcome here anymore.”

  “Why?”

  Finn pointed at the green cloak. “We’ve paid our debt. We’re done with wizards.”

  “Then why let me in at all?” Sven asked, suddenly conscious of the number of people who had come out of their houses. Many of them held spears and knives at the ready.

  Merciful Niminth, I can’t fight that many. Not that he wanted to fight any of them. Many of the faces were faded memories, but some of the voices were all too familiar. Maybe if I run. He searched for holes in the crowd and found none large enough.

  A new figure practically ran into the space between Sven and the gathering mob. “Enough!” he shouted in a voice clearly used to command.

  It was Erbark, and Sven practically wept. He was my closest friend, and I didn’t even recognize his face!

  The townsfolk hesitated. “Back to your homes, all of you,” Erbark ordered.

  “But the mayor,” a young man murmured. It was a voice Sven couldn’t place, probably because it had belonged to a child when he had left Rustiford.

  “I’ll talk to her. Sven’s not makin’ trouble if he’s with me.”

  “Erbark,” Sven breathed.

  “I knew you’d be back,” Erbark said back, drawing Sven away from the crowd. “I have some soup.”

  “Thank you.”

  The taste of Erbark’s soup brought back more old memories — rabbit and wild rice with too much laurita, though Lori had always preferred it to Sven’s. Sven stared into the fire as he ate.

  “I’m sorry for how they treated you,” Erbark said as the spoon scraped the bowl. “Sorry about your dad, too. We lost a lot of good folk i’that war, but he was the best.”

  Sven swallowed hard. He still couldn’t quite believe it. He hadn’t seen his father in eight years. Numbly, he spoke. “Thanks, Erbark.” With more energy he asked, “Who’s mayor now?”

  “Brita Ochregut took charge after Pitt died. She’s Elder, too.”

  Sven sucked breath. “What happened to Sveld?”

  Erbark shrugged and shook his head. “Sveld was old, Sven, as Elders tend to be. He caught Seruvus’ Breath three winters ago. There was nothin’ we could do.”

  Sven’s eyes filled with tears as he listened to Rustiford being slowly annihilated by his absence. “Lori? Hauk?”

  “Hauk’s blacksmith now. Thorhall died i’the ravit war, too.” Erbark paused, as though remembering some lost emotion. “Lori married Olver Winbrak.”

  Sven’s jaw dropped. “Ugly Olver? You’re kidding me!”

  “They’ve three sons an’ another kid on the way. Haki, Horik and Hrafn.”

  Sven still couldn’t believe it. “She chose Ugly Olver over you? Perhaps we misjudged the strength of her sense.”

  Erbark’s eyes became distant with regret.

  Sven changed the subject. “And what’ve you bee
n doing with yourself? I see folks finally listen to you.”

  “I was a scout i’the ravit war.” Erbark’s voice grew stronger as he spoke. “People thought I was crazy as a mapmaker volunteerin’ for that, but then I kept comin’ back alive. Killed a couple gobbels, too, three years back. No idea what they were doin’ so far south.”

  “Sounds like you’re halfway to your own star,” Sven said, relieved that his friend did not dwell on Lori too much. He sobered. “It’s probably good that you stayed here. I would’ve been useless in any kind of ravit war.”

  Erbark fixed Sven with a serious expression. “I never forgot that you went with Nightfire instead of me. You didn’t even ask.”

  “You would have refused. I know you.” Sven looked at the door. “What exactly happened here? Why does everyone act like they want to murder me?”

  “Brand happened.” Erbark sighed heavily. “I’m sure he meant well, but comin’ back here an’ tellin’ Pitt what’s what an’ how to run the town was a mistake. Talkin’ about turnin’ Rustiford into some kin’ of school, which seemed interestin’. I saw him usin’ magic to haul stuff, which seemed awful useful. But not everyone wanted to go to his readin’ lessons.”

  Sven remembered Nighfire’s final words before he had left the Academy. Do as I do. Help the ones who want your help. Enlighten those who seek enlightenment. Help those who can be helped, or you will merely end up wasting a lot of time fighting a losing battle against someone’s comfortable ignorance. One at a time, Sven. Bring enlightenment to one person at a time.

  “But then he had to go pick a fight with the ravits after that one little skirmish. Dragged us into a war, which is how we lost Pitt an’ a lot of others. Then Tosti came back wearin’ green, and he was even worse. Burned another man with magic for lookin’ at the girl he had an eye on. He an’ Brand had a big magic fight that burned down five houses an’ killed six people, includin’ Tosti.”

  Nightfire’s warning made more sense now. He knew about this, but he didn’t tell me. He knew I’d want to see for myself.

  “Brita said she’d had enough, an’ she told Brand to leave,” Erbark continued. “I think they would’ve killed Floki the next year if he’d come back a wizard. Thank Sendala he didn’t. Greta, though. It’s terrible what happened to her, an’ she left right after. We banished th’one who did it, but that’s not likely comfort to her wherever she en’ed up. Probably dead — she was headed right into ravit territory.”

  Sven’s eyes went wide. “But she wasn’t even a wizard.”

  Erbark spat into the fire. “No. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have dared try it.”

  “What about the others?” Sven’s voice shook. “Eda, Horsa?”

  “Came an’ went. Eda was mad, of course. Knocked out a few teeth before she left. Horsa, though, said somethin’ about an omen an’ walked back into the swamp like none of it mattered. Have you seen Katla? I wasn’t here when she came back.”

  Sven nodded. “She’s still at the Academy, teaching. I take it Brita welcomed Finn back?”

  Erbark grimaced. “Yeah, but a lot of folks weren’t so keen on th’idea. They wouldn’t have let him stay if he’d been a wizard or if his mother wasn’t mayor. That’s for sure.”

  “And that goes for me, too, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s stupid, but yes. People still remem’er Tosti an’ the Flasten slavers were wizards. Why’d you come back?”

  Sven managed a bitter laugh. “To teach people to read and maybe one day to use magic.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe find some other town out there where they’re not afraid of wizards and teach them?”

  “I’m goin’ with you.”

  Sven looked at his friend but said nothing.

  “Even if I don’t owe you my life because you went with Nightfire, a lot of other folks here do because they’d be dead if I’d gone with him. So Rustiford owes you a slave. That’s how it works, right?”

  “I’m not going to make you my slave, Erbark,” Sven said, appalled.

  “Then teach me, an’ I’ll go wherever you go.”

  “Rustiford needs you more than I do. You said yourself.”

  “There’s always new heroes. Marrish made the world that way. But you need someone to talk at, Sven, or you’ll be talkin’ at ravits before the month is out.”

  Sven looked at his friend’s curious eyes and saw himself. His hometown had been poisoned against wizards, possibly forever. He’d have to start somewhere else.

  “I’d be proud to have you as my apprentice, Erbark, and glad for your company.”

  One at a time.

  Chapter 12

  “Seruvus, the Mar god of water, is the only member of the pantheon who is considered omniscient, as water is everywhere in Marrishland. For each Mar Dinah’s Curse kills in violation of the Bald Goddess’s promise, she is condemned to serve Seruvus for another eight years. To this day, Dinah still bows to the whims of the Oathbinder, which is why any found to have broken their promises are taken as slaves for eight years by the magocrats.”

  — Weard Olga Fydelis,

  Mar Legends

  When Sven woke, the fire had almost gone out. He coughed behind his hand, and someone placed a cup of water on a small table next to him. He looked up, but Erbark was already headed to the fire, reaching for two logs.

  “Pondr told me you wanted to see me,” Erbark said as he used Power to split and crack the logs in the fire. Two more logs, and the fire regained its former heat.

  Sven drank the water gladly, his throat dry from coughing.

  A magocrat would never have fed the fire fuel slowly. A wizard would have placed all the logs on and then started the fire, which would have burned too hot to make the fuel last.

  Erbark was watching Sven, who straightened.

  “I fell asleep,” he said, because there wasn’t much else to say.

  Erbark nodded.

  “I did not summon you, but the Traveller must have known I would want to talk to you when I woke up.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He told me about my return to Rustiford. He reminded me that I wanted to educate the Mar, that I had to start one by one.”

  “He opposes your amendment.”

  “It is necessary, Erbark, and you know it. You know the state of our wizards and how this war with Flasten will exhaust their patience.” He coughed again. “And what I must do after that could take decades to bear any fruit. I am a powerful wizard, but even I can’t hold the Chair forever.”

  Erbark poured himself a glass of water and drank it. Sven stared at the fire, his mind working.

  The sleep was good for me.

  “You’re not a magocrat, Sven,” Erbark said after a minute.

  “What is that?”

  “You’re a teacher.”

  “Please do not test me, Erbark.”

  His friend dug in. “Remember when we left Rustiford? Remember Zerst, the first time? You just wanted to teach. To protect them long enough for them to learn to protect themselves. But even though they owed you their lives, you let them choose whether to accept you.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Nightfire didn’t make Rustiford give him slaves. We did it because he helped us when we couldn’t help ourselves. We thought we were paying him back, but he turned our tribute into a gift and gave it back to us. Even then, you didn’t have to become his apprentice.”

  “What does this have to do with … ”

  “I left Rustiford because you wanted to teach. And you didn’t care who you taught, just as long as they wanted to learn. People owed you their lives, and you didn’t demand anything from them in return.”

  Suddenly Sven knew. He spoke in a tight voice. “Those magocrats owe me their fealty. They could have left the Duxy of Domus if they had chosen. No oath binds you, Erbark. Do you want to end your service to me?”

  Erbark shook his head. “Of course not. I’m just remembering how
we started this.”

  Sven stared back at the fire. The Traveller’s story was still fresh in his mind, burned in by voice and sleep. And leaving Rustiford? Where did I go?

  * * *

  Sven and Erbark headed northwest through the swamps surrounding Rustiford. Within a nine-day span, the heavy overgrowth of the swamps began to give way to the rolling wetlands of the Morden Moors.

  While the swamp had presented its own dangers, the wide wetlands ahead of them had completely different ones. Quicksand and sinkholes were more common on the moors, and grass and sedges often concealed such hazards. Not to mention trudging through knee-deep water filled with leeches and burrowing konig worms and tainted with Dinah’s Curse.

  They trekked a half-day back to find a tree to build a canoe from, but that would only solve some of their problems. They needed to find dry ground to sleep and repair their canoe on. There was no wood to burn, and peat would have taken too long to dry out. But they needed fire to boil water so they could drink and eat, even if fire would draw any Drake for miles like a mapmaker to uncharted territory.

  It took them several days to adjust to this new environment. Frequently the water was too shallow to canoe in. Erbark’s spear and javelins provided the majority of their food, though the warrior found it more difficult to stalk his prey in the absence of cover. Crouching made for slow movement, and Erbark dared not risk Dinah’s Curse by crawling. Sven’s limited study of botany helped him supplement their diet with a few berries he knew to be safe to eat, and fire fueled by Energy cooked everything.

  Each night they ate their dinner, said their prayers and slept lightly on the moors. On the ninth day, they spotted a tall hill amid the surrounding wetlands. Sven and Erbark paddled to the hill eagerly, reaching it before darkness fell.

  “We’ll be really dry tonight,” Erbark said.

  As if Seruvus had a sense of humor, the sky erupted in one of Marrish’s famous summer storms, which drenched them and nearly washed them off the hilltop. Sven was thankful they had not been struck by a bolt of lightning during the tempest.

  “We’re lucky,” Erbark said cheerily, when the thunder and wind had finally abated.

  Sven joined him at the edge of the camp. The surrounding moorland had been submerged by the deluge, only the tops of the sedges betraying the presence of land below.