A Blight of Mages

by Karen Miller

  “Then do as I say!”

  “I can’t. Venette—” Unfolding his arms, Remmie took a step towards her. “Don’t you understand? The last time I let her out of my sight she fell in with Morgan Danfey.”

  “Thank you, Remmie,” Barl said sharply, rapping her knuckles to the workbench to ensure their attention. “I’m not a wayward child you need to keep on a leash.”

  “Exactly,” said Venette Martain, leaping in uninvited because it suited her purpose. “You’re being quite—”

  “I’m being a good brother!” said Remmie, not appreciating her interference either. “I’m honouring my word! Don’t waste your breath, Venette. You’ll not push me aside on this.”

  Now they glared at each other, and if she’d not been annoyed by Remmie’s high-handed bossiness Barl would have laughed at the thwarted look on Venette Martain’s face.

  She rapped the workbench again. “The choice is mine, you understand? Since I am the mage tasked with warding Dorana, I will be the mage who decides how that warding will be done. And if you don’t like it?” She spread her hands, tightly smiling. “Then by all means, find yourselves another mage.”

  Oh, and her brother and his new friend didn’t care for that. But she was beyond caring for what they did and did not like. There was an excellent chance that the warding of Dorana would kill her… or at the least leave her badly debilitated. It was a sacrifice she’d make, if not happily, then willingly. She owed that much to every mage who suffered now because of her mistakes.

  But it doesn’t mean I’ll be bullied. They need me more than I need them and for once I’m not inclined to let them forget it.

  Venette Martain’s shoulders slumped. “Fine. The choice is yours. But I implore you, Mage Lindin, let Remmie stay here. Elvado needs him. I need him. There are mages here aplenty who can serve as your guardian.”

  True enough. But no matter how badly Elvado and this woman needed her brother… she needed him more.

  “I’m sorry, Lady Martain,” she said, doing her best to sound sincere. “It’s not simply a case of needing a second pair of eyes to watch for mage-mist and other calamities. Remmie knows this incant and my magework. He is my other, better self.”

  “Venette…” His eyes soft with compassion, Remmie crossed to Lady Martain and slid his arm around her. “I’ll be back before you know it. You’ll hardly notice I’m gone. And I do need to do this. Keeping Barl safe is more important than anything.”

  “I know, I know,” Venette Martain murmured, and patted his cheek. “Don’t mind me, Remmie. I’m weary, and full of dark fancies.”

  Moved by the undeniable affection in the woman’s face, her voice, Barl scowled at the workbench. She didn’t want to be moved. She didn’t want to feel sorry for someone whose arrogant selfishness had helped push her towards disaster.

  “When will you leave, Mage Lindin?”

  Looking up, she saw that Venette Martain was holding fast to her husband’s ring, drawing strength from the memory of the man Morgan had destroyed. Another inconvenient rush of sympathy warmed her. For better or worse, Remmie had stepped into that void. And she didn’t have to like the woman to acknowledge the good she was doing, how hard she was working, and how much worse things would be if she’d not survived.

  Or how big a part Remmie plays in giving her the strength she needs to face each day.

  “At first light, my lady,” she said. “The sooner Dorana is warded, the sooner we can pour our hearts and souls into its healing.”

  Venette Martain closed her eyes, briefly. “You still believe it can be healed?”

  “I have to,” she said, after a heart-thudding moment of silence. “For if I didn’t… I couldn’t go on.”

  After a night of poorly-snatched sleep, and a plain breakfast, she and Remmie left the College at first light. If he was afraid of travelling by incant, she couldn’t tell. Perhaps it helped that before she took him to their first point of warding, she took herself there, alone, then returned to the College unharmed. She felt ill, of course, afterwards… but whether that was simply her usual travel sickness, or a result of Dorana’s unravelling, she couldn’t tell. She said nothing, only chewed a handful of runip berries, made certain again of the map, the wardstones and her notes in the stout leather satchel slung over her shoulder, took one last look around the mage-misted College grounds—a home of nightmares now, not dreams—wrapped her fingers around his wrist… and recited the incant.

  Stepping out of the air into a field on the outskirts of ruined Hoysten hamlet, which sat a stone’s throw from the border with Brantone, Remmie blinked to clear his travel-blurred vision, then gasped.

  “I know,” said Barl, following his shocked gaze to the row upon row of tents lined along the Brantish side of the boundary, and the gathered warriors beyond them. “Despite Lady Brislyn’s vivid description, seeing it somehow makes the danger more real.”

  The cool morning air rang with the chilling sounds of swords, clashing, and the steady drumming of horses’ hooves as their riders practised killing passes with their lowered spears. Underpinning that, the thock thock thock of arrows striking straw targets.

  “If this warding doesn’t work…” said Remmie, sounding strained. “Barl, we have no hope of defending ourselves against them.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” she said. “Why do you think Morgan and I—”

  He turned away. “Don’t. It’s because you and Morgan broke the rules that we’re in this mess. You created what he feared would come to pass.”

  As if she’d not already thought of that. As if she’d not lost countless nights of sleep, tossing and turning over that very notion.

  “Come on,” she said, in that moment close to hating him. “The sooner we start, the sooner you can get back to Elvado and your dear friend, Lady Martain.”

  He gave her a sharp look at that, but didn’t reply.

  Mouth dry, palms sweaty, Barl struck out towards the border. The original boundary warding was mostly unravelled, but just enough of the incant remained to guide her to the precise place where Dorana ended and Brantone began. Falling into step beside her, Remmie roamed his gaze around them, seeking the first sickening signs of mage-mist, and danger. After fifty paces he took hold of her arm and halted them both.

  “Let this be close enough. I don’t want to stir any trouble with our neighbours.”

  She resented being handled, but he did have a point. They’d not been noticed yet… and it would be best if they were never noticed at all.

  Sinking to her knees, she fumbled the first wardstone out of her satchel. Dug a shallow hole in the sparsely grassed dirt before her, half-buried the marble-sized chunk of dull grey crystal, then took a few deep breaths to compose herself.

  “All right, Remmie,” she whispered. “Cross your fingers.”

  To be sure, she recited the incant from her notes, not trusting to memory. As the weight of potent syllables gathered, she felt the sluggish rise of power in her blood. Felt her fingertips tingle as she inscribed the morning air with sigils. So many. Her head started to spin.

  When the last syllable was uttered and the forty-ninth sigil burned the air, she fell forward onto her hands, gasping. Remmie dropped to a crouch beside her.

  “Did it work? Barl, did it—”

  “I don’t know,” she said hoarsely. “And I won’t, not for certain, until the last wardstone is set and I try to trigger the incant. But…” Shaking, she sat back and blotted her sweaty face with her linen sleeve. “I think it’s all right. It felt smooth enough, and all of the sigils caught.”

  He handed her a kerchief. “Your nose is bleeding.”

  “Oh.” She dabbed, then looked at the red spots on the blue cotton. “Well. I suppose it could be worse.” After handing back the kerchief, she let him help her to standing then stared down at the incanted wardstone. “So. One down, twenty-four to go.”

  “Barl…” Remmie’s hand came to rest on her shoulder. “Can you do this? Are you strong
enough?”

  Glancing at him, she saw the genuine concern beneath his brittle, not quite friendly exterior. Made herself smile, though she could more easily weep.

  “There’s only one way to find out, Rem. Come on. Let’s get out of here before those warriors look over their shoulders and realise they’re not alone.”

  As the sun climbed the sky, then slid down it, they made their slow way around Dorana’s edge, embedding the wardstones with painstaking care. Soon enough Barl could recite the incant from memory… and everywhere she looked she found evidence of her folly. Dead, rotting livestock, killed by mage-mist. Rotting crops in the fields. Fresh graves. Abandoned farmhouses. Entire empty villages. Lives cut short, abandoned, all because she fell in love. Remmie didn’t reproach her. Said nothing at all. But by the time they’d embedded the twelfth wardstone, the pain in his face forced her to speak.

  “This isn’t your fault,” she said, as they stood side by side in yet another blighted field. “You tried to tell me.”

  He shook his head, despairing. “I should’ve tried harder. I should’ve known what to say.”

  “Remmie, don’t.” She pressed her hands to her face, hiding from the destruction. From him. “How much worse do you want me to feel?”

  “I’m not trying to punish you.”

  She let her hands drop. “Really?”

  Bending, he touched a mage-misted stalk of wheat and watched it crumble to stinking ash. “You don’t think you deserve punishment?”

  “I did none of this on purpose!”

  “I know, Barl,” he said wearily. “But still. You did it. Now come on. We’re only halfway done.”

  And because there was nothing she could say that would make the slightest difference, to anything, she took them to the next place marked on the map.

  It was dark when they returned, exhausted, to the College. Venette Martain and Dreen Brislyn were waiting for them in the workroom. Like Morgan’s inconvenient friend, Lady Brislyn showed the brutal fingerprints of Dorana’s misfortunes. Pale and thin, her eyes haunted by sights no-one should witness, by fears and threats that daily seemed more and more likely to come true, she stood as they entered.

  “Is it done?”

  Barl looked at the woman, her head viciously aching. “Would I have come back if it wasn’t?”

  “I warn you, Mage Lindin, do not try me!” Lady Brislyn snapped. “Not tonight. I lost two members of my Council to mage-mist on the way here.”

  Pushing her aside, Remmie stepped forward. “We’re sorry for your loss, my lady. It’s a tragedy.”

  “For all of Dorana. They were good men,” said Lady Brislyn, her voice cracked with grief. “Remmie, are we warded?”

  “Almost,” he said. “All that remains now is for the incant to be ignited.”

  “You haven’t ignited it?” said Venette Martain, torn between surprise and displeasure. “Dorana isn’t warded? Why not?”

  Barl let the emptied satchel slide from her throbbing shoulder and dropped onto the nearest stool. “Because if I’d died igniting it on the border, Remmie would’ve been stranded out there. If I die here he’ll not be inconvenienced. You of all people should appreciate that.”

  “Barl,” Remmie said softly. “Don’t.”

  Venette Martain exchanged a glance with Dreen Brislyn, then nodded. “Yes. All right. But can you ignite it now?”

  “Surely we can wait until the morning,” Remmie protested. “Barl is worn out. She—”

  Lips pinched bloodless, Dreen Brislyn stared him down. “We are all of us tired, Remmie. And we are out of time. You do know that people are sickening faster than ever? Dying from the slightest of ailments? You know we face the prospect of famine? And if this warding does not succeed, then—”

  “He knows!” Barl said, leaping up. “And I know. We’ve just come back from seeing the damage I’ve done to Dorana. If you think I need a sharper goad, Lady Brislyn, think again!”

  “Enough, Dreen,” Venette Martain murmured. “Your anger is justified, but not helpful. Mage Lindin, ignite the warding. Please. We must start Dorana’s healing. Even an hour might make the difference.”

  And so, though it made her eyes and nose bleed, threatened to crumble her bones to dust, felt like it came perilously close to killing her… she ignited Dorana’s warding.

  “Justice be praised,” she heard Venette Martain say, as Remmie gathered her close and held her hard against the wracking shudders and the pain. “We’re saved.”

  For nearly three weeks, Barl thought that was true. The General Council dispatched a flurry of letters to the waiting princes and potentates, assuring them that Dorana’s rancid magics were now contained. Believing them, their neighbours did not attack. With fresh hope, Remmie led the mages of Elvado in more great workings, which achieved little in practical terms but helped keep spirits high. She joined him once… but an unpleasant and unexpected encounter with Maris Garrick and her family sent her back to the College, where she could work alone, without screaming insults, on repairing Dorana’s fraying magical fabric.

  For nearly three weeks, she thought the worst was behind them.

  “Barl, wake up. It’s important.”

  Dragged resentful out of sleep, she blinked at her brother. “Remmie? Oh, go away. I spent all day and half the night shoring up the Hall and I’ve only just—”

  And then she felt it. The absence of magework. Heard silence, when for days she’d heard, deep in her mind, like a lullaby, the distant thrumming hum of the impossible ward she’d created.

  “Get up,” Remmie whispered, flickered with candle light and crouched beside the cot in her workroom. “The warding fell almost an hour ago. Venette says we must meet with Lady Brislyn and the General Council.”

  “What do they want from me, Remmie? That incant was the best I could do. I gave it everything. I have nothing left. So unless you agree to release Morgan, there’s no more I—”

  “No,” he said, and pressed his fingers to her lips. “We can’t risk that. As for what they want, Venette wouldn’t say.”

  Rolling away from him, she pushed her face into the pillow.

  Go away, Remmie. Leave me alone. I’ve wrecked Dorana and I can’t fix it. Leave me alone.

  Ruthless, he stripped off the blankets then hauled her from the cot.

  “I don’t care what you’re feeling,” he said, his fingers cruel on her arm. “When this is over, however it ends, you can crawl into a hole if you like and never show your face again. But right now, Barl, we are going to see the General Council.”

  Shocked, she stared at him. Searched in vain for her brother. Saw only a stranger with cold, fathomless eyes.

  “Now get dressed,” he said. “Quickly. We’ve wasted enough time.”

  By some miracle, and a great deal of magework, the Hall of Knowledge still stood… while many of Elvado’s other beautiful buildings were ruined.

  Declining the offer of a seat at the Council table, Venette instead stood by the chamber’s boarded-up window with Remmie Lindin, and watched the faces of Dreen’s councillors as the unpalatable truth sank in. There should have been fifteen of them, some ranked, some not—but death had thinned the herd to eight. Nine, counting Dreen.

  “You can do nothing?” Councillor Horbeck echoed, staring at Barl Lindin. From the baggy fit of his clothing, the Fourth district’s representative had been a robust man, once. Now his tired silk tunic hung in limp folds. “Nothing at all?”

  Hunched in her own chair, barely respectable in stained, patched linens, Remmie’s sister looked like a chastened child.

  “No, Councillor. I’m sorry. Ever since the borders were warded I have been working, almost without respite, to knit together Dorana’s tattered magic. I’ve had a little success, it’s true, but not enough. What Dorana needs is time for the imbalance to right itself, which it will do. I am sure of it. Only time is the one thing we don’t have any more.”

  “No, no. You must be mistaken,” Horbeck persisted, sweating. “Y
ou are Barl Lindin. There must be something you can do!”

  Venette felt Remmie flinch. For everyone’s sake, not least his sister’s, though some might say she deserved no such consideration, none of the councillors had been told of her part in their strife. All they knew was that Mage Lindin retained her magework, and that she’d used it to ward Dorana’s borders and save them from a bloody invasion.

  “I’m sorry,” Barl said again. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but there’s no point giving you false hope.”

  “Mage Lindin is right,” Dreen pointed out over the dismayed mutterings of her Council. “And I asked her to address this gathering so there might be no doubt. Councillors, the time has come for us to make a difficult decision.”

  Horbeck and his colleagues exchanged alarmed looks. “And what does that mean?” he said. “Lady Brislyn, if you’ve something to say, best you come out and say it.”

  Nodding, Dreen steepled her fingers. “Here then is the bald truth. With Dorana undefended, and the mage-mist uncontained and worsening, soon we will come under attack from our neighbours. You know as well as I that their patience is long since exhausted.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Lady Marnagh, of the Fifth district, her eyes wide, her voice unsteady. “Wait for them to come and kill us in our beds?”

  More dismayed outcry, louder this time. The shock was wearing off. Soon raw terror would prevail.

  “No, of course not!” Dreen said loudly, banging the table for silence. “Anticipating the worst, I have given this a great deal of thought. And once you’ve heard my proposal, I think you’ll agree that it must be our only chance of survival.”

  Venette closed her eyes. She and Dreen had discussed this, at great and secret length. And while the idea repulsed her, horrified her, she could not argue against it.

  “Justice save us all,” Remmie murmured, leaning close. “She wants to abandon Dorana, doesn’t she?”