A Blight of Mages

by Karen Miller

  “You must also know this, Rumm. Mage Lindin and I are engaged in magework crucial to the benefit and safety of Dorana. Some of this work is not, strictly speaking, sanctioned. You may see things, or hear things, that strike you as odd. If you feel unable to—”

  “My lord,” said Rumm, “say no more. I know you would die to protect Dorana, and that is all the explanation I need.”

  A sting of tears. He blinked them away. “This mageworking means that, from time to time, I will be relying on you to assist me in obtaining what some might call… dubious supplies. Does—”

  “My lord.”

  This time Rumm sounded pained. “I don’t intend to take you for granted!” Morgan said, then looked over his shoulder. “Speaking of supplies, Mage Lindin says you helped her with the creation of my father’s funeral clock.”

  Rumm looked down. “It was nothing, my lord.”

  “No, Rumm. It was something. And it won’t be forgotten.” He turned back to the window. “Now I’d like a little time alone. See to the servants, and then… do whatever it is that you do.”

  “My lord,” said Rumm. “Shall you and Mage Lindin be wanting breakfast?”

  “Barl will, most likely. For myself…”

  The thought of food had bile rising to burn his throat.

  “My lord,” Rumm murmured, perfectly deferential, and withdrew.

  In silence, for some time, Morgan continued to stare out of the window at the woodland, and distant Elvado. It was disturbing, knowing his father was behind him… and hearing only himself breathe.

  But he is dead. He is dead. And I must become accustomed.

  As he stood there, gazing at the estate that was now his, the pale morning light grew stronger and deeper. At last he stirred, and turned to the bed with its silent, stiffening burden.

  “I’d have you understand this, my lord. I don’t abandon Maris Garrick to spite you. I do not love her. I never did. And love matters to me. I know you thought me weak and foolish for that. You thought it was my mother’s taint and so you did your best to rid me of it. You failed, my lord… and for that I am most grateful. If I dropped dead beside you now, in this moment, I would die a happier man for one night in Barl Lindin’s arms than you ever were in the whole of your life.”

  And having said that, he walked out.

  He found Barl in the library, dressed in her faded, favourite blue linens and deep in perusal of Thimbole’s Examination of an Incant. Hearing his footfalls on the parquetry she looked up. Her eyes were shadowed, and grave.

  His heart thumped, remembering. “Are you sorry?”

  “No,” she said. “Are you?”

  “No.”

  She lowered the book to her lap, slowly. “And what about Maris?”

  He closed the library door. “Maris who?”

  “Morgan…” Her lips curved into a faint, kissable smile. “Do you mean that?”

  He didn’t smile back. This was too important. “My father wanted Maris. I make my own choices now. Barl, I choose you. I chose you, last night.”

  Her fingertip smoothed the edge of one page. “And I chose you, Morgan. But this is a new day. And before I choose you again, for good, I’d have something clear between us. I want no more secrets. No more half-truths. No more answers that aren’t answers. Morgan, we transmuted a living creature. Everything is different now. And if you want me to follow you any further down this path, you’ll tell me why we did that. Or you’ll walk it alone.”

  Step by step he closed the distance between them, and when he reached the chair he dropped to his knees.

  “Barl, do you trust me?”

  “Oh, Morgan.” Her face twisted. “Did you not hear what I just said?”

  Reaching over the top of the book, he seized both her hands. “I am answering you. But first, answer me.”

  “Yes. I trust you. I don’t know why you keep asking. If I’ve not proven it by now then—”

  “You have,” he said, and pressed her knuckles to his lips. “The trouble is, I don’t have a good reason to give you. I can tell you why, but that isn’t the same. Because the why is nothing more than a feeling, my feeling, that Dorana isn’t safe.”

  “Not safe?” She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t either, sometimes,” he confessed. “Thought about lightly, my fears make no sense. We are mages, gifted beyond the dreaming of any other race. We’re respected, even feared, by every nation beyond our borders. While our neighbours make war on each other, we live in peace. While their rulers rise and fall in dynastic conflagrations, we conduct our affairs with consummate civility.”

  “Really?” she said. “I’d hardly call Sallis Arkley civil.”

  “Sallis Arkley is a cantankerous old bastard, but that’s not the point. Despite personal differences, our culture endures. It thrives.”

  “And yet you say we’re not safe?”

  Letting go of her hands, he sat back on his heels and rubbed his hands across his face. “No. I do not think we are. We might be mages, Barl, but we can still be pierced by a spear or slashed in two by a sword. An arrow can puncture our hearts. A rock can crush our skulls.”

  “We have incants that can destroy weapons like that.”

  “True,” he said. “But what if we faced hundreds of them? Or thousands? We could never invoke those incants fast enough then. And don’t forget the panic that would surely spread in the face of such aggression.”

  Her eyes widened with disbelief. “You think Feen or Trindek or Vharne or any of our neighbours would be so foolish as to attack us?”

  “I don’t know,” he muttered. “When you say it out loud it sounds ridiculous. I see that. But Barl, the truth is that Dorana is defenceless. We abandoned martial magework nearly four centuries ago. Yes, the incants still exist, but they’re warded deep below the Hall, never again to see the light of day. Beyond the Council, I’d wager every other mage has forgotten we ever used them. For all the good they could do us, they might as well have been destroyed.”

  Barl swung her legs over the side of the reading chair and slid to her feet. “But why would we need them? We’re not at war, Morgan. And whatever bickering exists between Feen and Manemli, or Trindek and Iringa, or Iringa and Vharne, it has nothing to do with us. It never has done. It never will. This is Dorana. We don’t need martial magework. No other nation would dare raise its hand to us.”

  He shook his head. “You sound like Sallis and Shari.”

  “And you sound mad!”

  “I’m not,” he said, and unfolded to his feet. “Barl, we are in danger. Even without proof of it, I know that as surely as I know I love you. As surely as I knew you were the only woman for me, the very first time I saw you in Hahren’s antechamber.”

  “Oh, Morgan.” She turned away, then almost at once turned back again. “Wait. You saw me then?”

  “I did. And sat through dinner with Maris afterwards, unable to see any face but yours.”

  He’d surprised her. “I had no idea,” she murmured. “I was so upset that day, so angry.”

  “A good thing, too,” he said. “Else you might not have flown at Hahren… and we may never have met.”

  She stared at him, fingers straying to her lips. “You’re quite sure you’ve no proof of this danger aside from your feelings?”

  “None,” he said simply. “Which is why this is about trust.”

  “And I do trust you,” she said. “Never doubt that. But Dorana in danger? Attacked? It sounds so unlikely…” Sighing, she turned to the nearest bookshelf and gazed at the titles before her. “But let’s assume you’re right. What do our transmutations have to do with this?”

  And now they’d reached the heart of the matter.

  “Since we cannot defend ourselves, we need someone… or something… to defend us. Something that cannot be defeated by swords and slingshots and arrows. That will fight for us, and die for us, so that no mage of Dorana will be lost.”

  “You want to create warriors?”r />
  “I do.”

  Hesitant, she turned back to him. “Create them out of what? Trindeki armoured beetles?”

  “Partly,” he said, and took a step toward her. “But the Trindeki beetle was only the beginning. Once we have perfected the transmutation, we’ll need to look further afield.”

  Her eyes clouded. “Use other living creatures, you mean?”

  “I know,” he said. “I find the notion distasteful, too. But how much more distasteful will it be if we do nothing, and Doranen mages end up slaughtered in their beds? Barl, could you forgive yourself if even one mage died when you might have saved him? I couldn’t, so I must do this. And I cannot do it alone.”

  Looking away, Barl let herself slump against the bookshelves. Morgan watched her, his heart pounding, so frightened she’d say no and walk out of his life forever.

  What will I do if she leaves me? How will I live if she’s gone?

  “Barl—”

  She held up a hand, demanding his silence. So he fell silent, and waited, sweat trickling down his ribs.

  At last she straightened, and stepped close to him. Her hand, fingers spread, came to rest above his thundering heart. Lifting her head she stared at him, seeming to see right through his soul.

  “Swear to me, Morgan, on the memory of your father, that everything you’ve said is true. That Dorana is in mortal danger. That there is no other way to save it but this. And that if we should learn we’ve made a mistake we will stop our dangerous magework… and destroy all trace of what we’ve done.”

  He covered her hand with his. Lowered his lips to hers, and kissed her. Relief and joy and excitement were a bonfire in his blood.

  “My love… my beloved… I do so solemnly swear.”

  “Promise me this, Barl. Promise me you won’t die.”

  Lying in Morgan’s bed as he slept restless beside her, Barl heard his anguished plea echo in her memory, and sighed. He was so powerful, and yet so afraid. She’d never expected that. The new Lord Danfey was such a contradiction. In his magework unassailable, but in her arms, as vulnerable as a child. And not simply because he mourned for his father. He was scarred more deeply than that.

  Since the night of Lord Danfey’s death, Morgan had laid his life bare to her. She’d wept with him as he remembered his mother. Held him tight as he shared his memories of Luzena, reliving his first love’s cruel, untimely death. Watched him, close to tears, as he haltingly roamed his chamber, chivvied by Greve Danfey, that imperious, autocratic, demanding old man.

  Four days had passed since his lordship’s crypting, performed privily with only themselves and Rumm as witness. She’d helped Morgan with the preserving incants and the effigy for the tomb, lending him her magework when his own faltered beneath the burden of his overpowering grief. At first she’d been afraid her own memories of loss would render her useless to help him. Instead they’d given her strength… and he’d leaned on that strength as though without it he would perish.

  “Promise me this, Barl. Promise me you won’t die.”

  And of course she’d promised. What else could she do?

  “Neither of us will die, Morgan. You and I will live forever.”

  Which wasn’t true, and never could be. Of course they knew that. But for a small time they had to pretend it was, or be broken to pieces.

  She hadn’t known love would be like this. So consuming. So liberating. For the first time in her life she really was herself. Only now, with Morgan beside her, did she understand how caged she’d been. Remmie, dear Remmie, used his love like a tether, always tugging to keep her close to the ground. Remmie lived his life in fear. But Morgan… Morgan…

  Morgan gave me wings and demanded that I fly.

  And to think she’d cursed Artisan Master Arndel, when without his mean-spirited, short-sighted interference she and Morgan would never have discovered how perfectly they complemented each other.

  Like Hahren, without Arndel we would never have met.

  The moment it was safe to declare themselves in public, she’d return to Arndel’s artisanry and thank him in person. And then she was going to laugh while he choked on his bile.

  Between us, there is no magic Morgan and I can’t do. Together we will save Dorana. I think it’s why we were born.

  Remembering that, it was growing easier to accept what must be done. Sometimes, caught up in the power of the transmutation incant as first they perfected the melding of armoured beetle with feather, then moved on to the next, even more challenging stage of their quest, it was even possible to forget that in her determination to save Dorana she was taking lives with magic. She welcomed that oblivion, even as she accepted Morgan was right. Small lives perished so larger lives could survive. There was no shame. It was simply the rule of nature. More fool her to ever forget it.

  “Barl…”

  She opened her eyes to find his heavy blue gaze upon her. Traced his smiling lips with her fingertips. Smiled as he kissed them.

  “Good morning, my love. I slept well. Did you?”

  Hoisting himself onto one elbow, Morgan smoothed her hair from around her face then slid his hand down further to pull sheet and blanket aside. He said he never tired of seeing her naked. His desire for her was bold. Invigorating. Unashamed. It woke in her a recklessness, so that she revelled in his regard.

  “I slept perfectly,” he said, trailing his fingers from her navel, between her breasts, to the base of her throat. “But now I’m awake.”

  The day’s new light, filtering through the window, gilded his face and all the muscles of his arm and chest. Lifting her head, she tasted him. Felt him tremble. Felt her power.

  “So I see,” she murmured. “And so am I.”

  It was another kind of magic, their loving. Pleasure upon pleasure, so powerful that it hurt. There was nothing he could do to her she would not welcome. Nothing he could ask of her she would not give. And when it was her turn to demand, he gave without hesitation. They surrendered to each other. They both conquered. They both won. Her cry of release mingled with his sobbing sigh.

  Sweat-slicked and sated, they clung to each other in the wreckage of his bed. A good thing they’d warded the chamber to silence, else they’d have Rumm banging the doors down in the belief they were being murdered.

  Morgan kissed her, lightly, then rested his head on her breasts. She could feel his heart thudding, keeping time with hers.

  “Barl… my beloved…” His sigh fanned her damp skin. “I never knew how starved I was until you became my feast.”

  She roamed her fingers down his spine, relishing the feel of taut skin and muscle. Breathing him in, she felt the slow burn of fresh arousal.

  “And I was a paper woman, until you set me on fire.”

  Quizzical, he shook his head. “That makes no sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense,” she said, laughing. “I’m forged anew in your flames, Morgan. The old Barl Lindin is a drift of ash and I’ve taken her place. I am gold and iron. Everything that is made beautiful in conflagration, that’s me.”

  He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. Kissed her breasts and her belly. “That’s very true. Barl, thank you for my father’s clock.”

  It was the first time he’d mentioned it since that night. “I was afraid that once you’d had time to consider what I’d done, you’d be angry. I thought you might think it an impertinence and punish Rumm for overstepping his bounds.”

  “No. No.” Morgan stretched out beside her, entwining his fingers with hers. “How could you think that of me?”

  “How could I not think it? I didn’t know you then.”

  Rolling his head on the pillow, he stared into her eyes. “And you know me now?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “As I know myself.”

  He raised their linked hands. Kissed each of her knuckles. “I never knew myself until I met you. That other man with my face, he is a stranger.”

  The simple declaration brought her to tears. When he pulled her close she h
id against him, undone by happiness. He loved her again, slowly, like a priest worshipping his goddess. Selfishly she let him, accepted each caress like a tribute, each gasping wave of pleasure as though it were her due. At last, when he’d wrung from her so many shudders she was sure she must die, he took his own shuddering release.

  Humbled, she framed his face with her hands. “I love you, Morgan Danfey. You are the lord of my heart.”

  He stared at her, silent, as tears brimmed in his eyes. And then he smiled. “And you are my lady… until time itself ends.”

  For a moment, one single, terrible moment, she couldn’t breathe through her fear. Don’t die, he’d begged her, the night they crypted his father, and she’d promised she wouldn’t, promised him knowing it was a lie.

  Unless… unless… is there a way to defeat death?

  She didn’t know. But if there was, she would do her best to find it. Or create it. Because if anything should ever happen to him? Well. Living without Morgan would not be living at all.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  An hour later, Morgan considered his dwindling supply of catalysts, and frowned.

  “I think we must soon send Rumm off with a fat purse and a long list.”

  “How soon?” said Barl, as she scribbled notations at the attic workbench. “And for how long? He must have time to bake us a pie before he goes, and he can’t stay away more than one night, else between us we’ll either burn down the mansion trying to cook dinner… or starve.”

  If that weren’t true, it might be amusing. Perhaps he’d acted a trifle hastily in dismissing all the servants. Of course, solitude and privacy were paramount so his mageworking with Barl might continue uninterrupted, but timely, edible meals were also important. He might have to consider bringing back the cook.

  Barl set aside her quill and joined him to stare at the dozens of emptied and nearly emptied jars and bottles on the workroom’s shelves.

  “How difficult will it be to replace what’s been used?”

  He frowned again. “Difficult enough. Though most of these catalysts aren’t restricted, we have run out of so many that if we’re not roundabout there may well be awkward questions asked. And I have no desire to rouse Sallis Arkley’s curiosity. Not when the Council seems to have forgotten our existence.”