A Blight of Mages

by Karen Miller

  “And you’re probably right.” Dreen laughed, bitter. “Seeing as his magework is also in fine working fettle. Oh, Venette. If only—”

  “What?” Venette said, when Dreen didn’t finish. “If only we’d realised what was going on right under our noses, and put a stop to it before any of this could happen?”

  Dreen’s lips trembled, then firmed. “The General Council trusted you. Every mage in Dorana trusted you. The Council of Mages’ purpose is to keep us safe from magework run amok.”

  And the Council of Mages had failed. Searingly aware of her own part in that, Venette folded her arms. “I appreciate your dismay, Lady Brislyn. However—”

  With a shrieking, groaning crash a fabric shop three doors along from them collapsed to splintered ruins. Tension forgotten, they stared at the destruction—then ran as the air began to thicken with mage-mist.

  Instinct and desperation sent Venette towards Elvado’s central plaza and the Hall of Knowledge, for so long her touchstone and her second home. They helped her keep to the vanishing shadows, avoid the treacherous drifts of mage-mist, the gaping holes in the streets where magic’s fabric was giving way. Dreen kept pace with her, grimly panting.

  As they ran they saw more bloody, mutilated bodies, but no other living soul.

  Reaching the edge of the plaza, they stumbled against one of the pillars supporting the general library’s grand portico. Blotted sweat from their faces and heaved air into their burning lungs. In the smothering hush, the central fountain’s splashing water sounded loud and obscenely playful.

  Venette looked past the fountain, across the expanse of the plaza, through more idly drifting mage-mist. Refused to dwell on the dead mages scattered over the cheerful mosaics. If she looked at their faces she had no doubt she’d know some of them. She had no intention of looking. Not now. Perhaps later. Instead, she stared up at the Hall of Knowledge and felt her heart shrivel in despair. Dozens of Morgan’s inhuman creatures perched on its lofty roof and many balconies like diseased, deformed ravens brooding in a tree.

  “And so the mages of Dorana are become nothing but carrion-eaters,” Dreen said dully. “I think this is the end of all we have known and loved.”

  Though she could easily weep enough tears to make a second fountain, Venette pushed away from the pillar and forced herself to stand straight.

  “Enough, Lady Brislyn. Self-pity will not serve us. I am the last surviving member of Dorana’s Council of Mages. You are the head of its General Council. Which means, for better or worse, you and I must lead our people out of this morass.”

  Dreen sneered. “Noble sentiments. But unless you stumble across a way to knit together our unravelled magework and destroy those monstrous things—” She pointed a shaking finger at the incanted creatures clinging to the Hall. “—then I fail to see how—”

  In a leathery fluttering, in a parody of stooping flight, one by one Morgan’s creations plummeted from their perches to the plaza below. As they stared, bewildered, another creature landed with a soft thud almost at their feet.

  “It’s not dead,” Breen said, kneeling beside it. “I think—it seems… entranced.”

  Staring down at the thing, revolted, skin crawling, Did I know this mage before Morgan’s meddling? Was this once someone I called my friend? Venette felt instinct stir again.

  “This is Barl’s doing. It must be.”

  Grunting a little, Dreen pushed to her feet. “If you’re right, it means we’ve been granted a welcome respite.”

  “But for how long?” Venette murmured. “Come. We should get back to the Shooting Star. This is no place for the making of difficult decisions.”

  They returned to the inn, not stopping to speak with the dribs and drabs of mages who by some miracle had survived the dreadful night to emerge, dazed and shattered, from their hiding places. Their stories would have to be heard, of course… but that could wait.

  It took them some time to reach the Shooting Star. The haphazard drifts of mage-mist were increasing, forcing them to detour time and time again. And everywhere they turned, every side-street and alley they hurried along, they saw Morgan’s slumbering beasts… thick as fleas on a cur dog.

  Wan and exhausted, changed into fresh silk tunic and trousers, Barl Lindin looked up from the old book she was reading as they entered her brother’s unwarded room.

  “It’s done,” she said, letting the book fall to her lap. She was sat on the edge of the bed, more books piled beside her. “Morgan’s bound, and his creatures are bound with him. There’s something in his magework that ties them together. They won’t break free.”

  Her brother stood by the window, his similar face hardened into deep and difficult lines. “So you claim,” he retorted, as though he’d said it before and was tired of repeating himself. “But you can’t promise that, can you?”

  Barl looked at him, her eyes cold. “Yes. I can.”

  “Your magework continues unaffected, then?” Dreen asked, sounding brittle.

  “Apparently.”

  Dreen held out her scorched hand. “Then you must be the only mage in Dorana so favoured.”

  An uncomfortable silence, thick with pain and anger and unspoken recriminations. Then Barl put the book aside.

  “With Morgan and his creatures bound, we’re safe. So we must—”

  “Safe?” said Dreen, incredulous. “We’re all the rest of us turned into cripples, Elvado—Dorana—is rotten with mage-mist and our belligerent neighbours even now sharpen their swords! How is that safe?”

  “She’s right, Mage Lindin,” Venette said. “My magework might be doubtful, but I can still feel the spreading rot beneath Dorana’s surface.”

  “A rot I can heal,” said Barl. “But not on my own.” She gestured at the books around her. “And these grimoires I took from Morgan’s library won’t be enough assistance.”

  Her brother stared at her, then laughed. “You’re mad, Barl. He is bound and he is staying bound. But I fear even that might not hold him. You should wall him up in his family’s tomb and ward the entire Danfey estate untouchable until the end of time.”

  “Which would be even crueller than killing him,” Barl said sharply. “And if you think I could do that, then you don’t know me at all.”

  “Barl—” His face anguished, her brother sounded close to naked grief. “He’s not a man any more, he’s a beast—as dangerous as those monstrosities he created. We can’t take the chance he’ll—”

  “No, Remmie!” Barl said, her voice ragged. “Justice save me, how often must we argue this? Until we can no longer look each other in the eye? Until I hate you, and you hate me, and we have turned each other into orphans?”

  Remmie Lindin was the first to shift his gaze. Seeming heartbroken at her victory, Barl turned to Dreen. “With the Council of Mages all but destroyed, the General Council is Dorana’s only hope of leadership. I can take you home, so you and your colleagues can quell any panic.”

  Dreen cleared her throat. “I don’t know if that’s possible, Mage Lindin. We can’t quell the mage-mist, which is the cause of our panic. We can’t keep it from spreading further beyond our borders, or prevent our neighbours from making good on their threats.”

  “No,” Barl said slowly. “But I can… provided you can hold back Brantone and the others for just a little longer.”

  “How?” Venette demanded. “You’re a talented mage, I grant you, but there are limits, Mage Lindin. This is no time for arrogant boasting or vainglorious dreams. False hope is worse than no hope at all.”

  “I can—I think I can—raise a warding on our borders,” Barl said, after a moment. She was staring at the book she’d set aside. “One strong enough to contain Dorana’s unravelling within it.”

  “And then what?” said Dreen. “We slowly but surely perish, trapped and swallowed by mage-mist and justice alone knows what other calamities?”

  “Of course not. With the immediate danger of our angry neighbours averted, I can work towards healing Dora
na.”

  Remmie Lindin snorted. “By yourself?”

  “No,” she said, carefully. “With Morgan’s help, I hope.”

  “Your brother’s right,” said Dreen, shocked. “You’re mad.”

  Barl held up an entreating hand. “Please, hear me out. I won’t deny Morgan’s lost his reason. But it’s my hope that with this binding, with this chance to rest, he’ll return to himself. And if—when—he does, I know he’ll want to make amends. I know he’ll help me turn back this dark tide.”

  Venette shook her head. “That’s if it can be turned back. I’m not sure that’s possible. We never got the chance to start the great working, and now with so many of Dorana’s best mages perished… and worse…”

  The pain of that threatened to choke her. They’d come to Elvado on her authority, trusting in her and the Council. Now they were dead or beasted or in hiding, their lives a stinking ruin around them.

  “We won’t know what’s possible until we try,” said Barl, standing. “And we have to try. With or without Morgan’s help, we have to. We can’t cower here, weeping and wailing and wringing our hands, waiting for foreign warriors to slaughter us.”

  Exhausted, Venette pressed dirty fingertips to her eyes. “I fear there’s little the rest of us can do, Mage Lindin, with our mage powers denied us.”

  “We can still attempt a great working,” the girl said, so stubborn. “Remmie can lead in that. It might not succeed, but we won’t know for sure until it fails. And until Morgan’s well again you can help me, Lady Martain. Your mage powers are uncertain but your experience and knowledge, those aren’t diminished. You can help me with the theory of what I’ll attempt. And when we’re satisfied we’ve found the answers, I can put them into practice. Without Morgan, if I have to.”

  “Ward the whole country,” Remmie Lindin muttered. “Barl, you can’t.”

  “We won’t know that, either, until I try.”

  “And likely kill yourself trying!” he protested. “I won’t let you do it.”

  Barl shook her head. “It’s not your decision, Remmie.”

  He turned his back on her, his tired, handsome face twisting with grief. Sparing him a sympathetic glance, Dreen straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin.

  “As leader of the General Council, I will have a say in this. And I say it is a plan worth pursuing. If you’re ready, Mage Lindin, I’d have you return me to Basingdown. It would seem my colleagues and I have a raft of diplomatic missives to compose.”

  After they left, Venette waited some time for Remmie Lindin to speak. When he didn’t, just kept staring blindly out of the small window, his fingers clenched bloodless holding its curtain aside, she breathed out a deep sigh and sat on the bed.

  “You blame yourself.”

  “It’s my fault.”

  “No, Remmie. It isn’t. No more than it’s mine because I am Morgan’s friend. She is a woman grown. She made her own choices. He made his. The fault is theirs.”

  Releasing the curtain, Remmie dropped to the other end of the bed. Morgan’s books bounced and overbalanced and slid to the floor.

  “She’s a talented artisan. She made beautiful clocks. But they were never enough for her. She always wanted more.”

  Like the College of Mages. Remembering that confrontation, as though it had been a dream, Venette felt her mouth dry.

  And if we’d not denied her that, would we be in such dire straits now?

  A terrible question to ponder. She didn’t think she could bear to.

  “It does no good to dwell on the past, Remmie. Let go of your anger. She’s going to need you in the days ahead.”

  “And I’ll be here,” he said bitterly. “I always am, Lady Martain.”

  “Venette.”

  Startled, he stared at her. And then, slowly, he smiled. “Very well. Venette.” Just as slowly, the smile faded. “But so we understand each other? I still think Morgan Danfey should die. Until he is dead, the world will not be safe.”

  She wanted to hate him for saying it. She wanted to rant at him, and curse. But how could she when every instinct was screaming he was right?

  “I need to go home,” she said. “I need to see that my husband has survived the night. And then I must be seen on the streets of Elvado. Dreen Brislyn has her tasks… and as the Council of Mages’ last mage, I have my mine.”

  He nodded. “I’ll leave a note for Barl and come with you. If I’m to lead those of us who are left in a working, I shouldn’t be a stranger. Besides, with so much fear and uncertainty to contend with, you might not be safe alone.”

  Once more, he was right. Not safe alone… not safe with Morgan living. As they left the inn, she couldn’t help but wonder.

  Will any of us be safe anywhere, ever again?

  It took them nearly three hours to reach her once-peaceful, once-beautiful neighbourhood. Remmie’s first sight and smell of the night’s carnage bent him double, gagging. But after that he was stoic, his grief and horror contained. Soon he passed Morgan’s entranced creatures, the shattered dwellings, the bloodied corpses, with little more than a sharply indrawn breath and a repressed shudder.

  When they weren’t evading mage-mist, they were struggling their way along rubble and glass-strewn streets or stopping to encourage the mages they found who’d lived through the night. Some were dreadfully wounded, by mage-mist or falling debris. Others seemed witless, their reason fled in the face of unrelenting horrors. After listening to their near-incoherent tales of survival, Venette told them to gather in the central plaza, where they might find friends and family and perhaps even a pother. Promised that help would come, soon, and urged them not to abandon hope. Dorana’s Councils were working to see order restored.

  “If these poor wretches are the best of us now,” Remmie muttered, as they left yet another gaggle of weeping mages in their wake, “then I hold little hope of a working’s success.”

  He was likely right, but she couldn’t afford to let him despair. “Do not count your fellow mages so lightly, Mage Lindin. The best steel is forged in the hottest fires, remember.”

  Close to noon, they finally reached her town house. Its wrought iron gates hung bent and crooked on their hinges, and the wide front doors had been splintered to kindling.

  “Wait here,” said Remmie, his hand gently restraining. “I’ll see if there’s anyone—” He bit his lip. “Wait here.”

  She wasn’t brave enough to argue. Waited on the mosaiced front path, shivering, as Barl’s brother entered the house. When at last he emerged, she took one look at his pale face and felt her knees buckle.

  “I’m sorry, Venette,” he said, crouching beside her on the path. His left hand was cold on her shoulder. The fingers of his right hand unfolded, revealing a red-smeared gold ring set with diamonds and sapphires. “Was this your husband’s?”

  She couldn’t speak. Could only nod. Orwin’s wedding ring sat on Remmie’s palm, bloodily reproachful.

  “He wasn’t beasted,” Remmie said, his arm sliding around her. “I think he must’ve fought back when the creatures Morgan sent here tried to take him.”

  Any lingering affection she’d felt for Haeth’s son died in that moment.

  “I want to see him,” she said, struggling to her feet. “I want to see my husband.”

  His eyes brilliant with grief, Remmie took hold of her shoulders. “No, Venette. You don’t.”

  Silenced, she looked at him. Thought, I am a widow. And then the tears came. She sobbed in Remmie’s compassionate embrace until her throat was raw, her head aching. Some time after she was empty, she pulled free of his arms.

  “Your sister should be back by now,” she said, and was shocked by how she sounded. “We’ll return to the inn, Remmie. There is a great deal to do.”

  The days that came after blurred swiftly one into the next, until weeks had passed with hardly any good news to be found.

  Morgan slept in his mansion, shifted from the library onto his bed. Every day, Venette checked on h
im. Not once did he stir, still and quiet as an effigy upon its marble tomb.

  Scolding, cajoling, encouraging and pleading, Dreen Brislyn rallied the shaken General Council. She and her colleagues crafted their missives to the princes and potentates belligerent at the borders, and in return wrung from them a suspicious, reluctant respite. The cursed mages of Dorana had the span of two full moons in which to undo the creeping damage their magic had caused. But if, following two full moons, Dorana’s innocent neighbours still suffered from Doranen magic, then the mages of Dorana would tender payment in blood.

  Dreen and her General Council kept that ultimatum secret from all save Venette Martain, Barl Lindin and her brother, and devoted every hour they could find to the succouring of Dorana. Travelling laboriously by carriage, they visited every district, meeting with civic leaders, struggling to allay fears, instil confidence, and show by example that the mages of Dorana could, for a little while, live a magickless life. The people should not lose hope. Their magework was not gone from them forever. There was to be a working in Elvado, and a plan was in place to rid Dorana of mage-mist.

  With Venette’s guidance, Remmie by her side, Elvado’s frightened survivors were shepherded to a fragile calm. The first thing they did was gather Morgan Danfey’s bound beasts in the central plaza, nine hundred and ninety-six of them all told. Remmie tried to kill one, but no sooner had his dagger plunged hilt-deep in the monstrous thing’s heart than the blade was spat out again, rejected. So the creatures were piled into the lightless chambers below the Hall, and Barl was called from her magework to ward them within.

  “You know what this likely means, don’t you?” she said to her brother. “If you try to stab Morgan, you’ll get the same result.”

  Remmie wanted to call that wishful thinking on her part, but since Danfey and his creatures were indisputably linked…

  “Yes,” he said curtly. “And given what’s happening, you shouldn’t look so pleased.”

  After that, Remmie rarely saw her. She shifted the books she needed from Morgan Danfey’s startling library to the College of Mages, where she and its remaining tutors studied them, and she ate, slept and breathed outrageous magics. Argued the finer points of warding incants. Created and discarded scores of different wards. It was thought, for a few hopeful moments, that because Remmie and she were twins that he’d be able to magework like her. But like every other mage, his magework remained sporadic. Unreliable.