A Blight of Mages

by Karen Miller

  “For no reason!” he cried. “When you’ve no sure proof that Morgan Danfey won’t stay warded in Elvado until the end of time!”

  He still refused to believe her? “Remmie—”

  “Go away, Barl. Leave me be.”

  “No, Remmie, I—”

  “Leave me be!”

  His anguish echoed through the woodland. Startled birds leapt to the air, wings clattering.

  Defeated, she left him.

  Alone with his rage and pain, Remmie wandered the gloom of the Black Woods, raggedly circling the remote village of Gribley. Feeling the drag of his hurt hip. Hating it. The silence should have been soothing, but instead it mocked him with the silence of the dead he’d left behind. For months he’d pushed away all thought of what he’d lost. Irielle dead. Barton Haye. All his pupils, not just in Batava but his other schools as well. Of course, there was a chance they weren’t all perished. They could be living still, trapped in Iringa or Manemli or Vharne or Benbarsk, hunted like animals, struggling to survive.

  So many dead and missing. Our race is practically extinct. And now Barl would die to save what’s left?

  He should love her for it, but he didn’t. He was tired of sacrifice, tired of putting on a brave face for the mages who now looked to him for answers. For relief.

  He was tired.

  Eventually his aimless wandering returned him to the crowded village. The Olken stared at him, nudging and whispering as he passed by. Because the Doranen needed these odd, rustic little people he nodded pleasantly, and smiled, but inside he was raging.

  And if she does this thing, my sister, will you care what it cost? Will it matter to you that a stranger died to give you so much, asking so little in return?

  “Mage Lindin,” said Elder Chaffie, looking up from stirring a large pot of soup. Crowded around her in the village bakery’s lean-to, six more pots simmered over open, wood-fueled flames. So many bellies to fill, thanks to his people. The old woman looked weary enough to weep. “I’ve seen Lady Martain. She says there’s news to share.”

  “There is,” he said, nodding. “But I’ll let Barl speak of it tonight. I was wondering… do the Olken drink ale?”

  Elder Chaffie’s eyes were sharp and knowing. “They do,” she said, after a moment. “Got a thirst, have you?”

  A thirst? No, he had the driving need to drink himself blind. To numb the pain and gift himself with an hour or two of forgetfulness.

  “I could swallow a drop, if you can spare it.”

  She rested her wooden spoon on the battered cook top. “I’ll spare you a jug, Remmie Lindin. The misery in you is enough to break this mother’s heart.”

  He took the stoppered jug she gave him and retreated to the woodland. Found a fallen log and settled himself against it, feeling the bark hard against his spine and the aching muscles of his back. Unstoppered the jug, sloshing it. His empty belly rumbled.

  See what you’ve done, Barl? You’ve driven me to drink.

  Olken ale was rich and potent, making him gasp at his first mouthful. Gasp again at the second. But by his fifth swallow he was smiling…

  The jug was a drop from empty when he heard a twig snap. Peering over the log he frowned, muzzy, at the Olken girl who’d found him.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t meant to fright you.”

  She was slender. Nearly pretty. She had dark eyes and dark hair. He pulled a face. “You didn’t.”

  She came a few steps closer. “I saw you leave the village. You looked sad. I thought… well.” She dimpled, a hint of mischief. A tease of flirting. “I thought I could give you a mite of cheer. My name’s Del.”

  “Is it?” he said. “Mine’s Remmie.”

  “I know,” she said, folding to the ground beside him. Rested her hand on his thigh, and smiled. “Hello, Remmie.”

  He felt his blood pound and his head spin. Reckless, angry, he tossed the jug aside and kissed the Olken girl. Fingers busy, she kissed him back. Giggled into his panting mouth. Heart racing, he stared into her dark eyes. Felt his hand on her small breast, where she’d put it, and started to pull away.

  “No—we shouldn’t—”

  “Why shouldn’t we?” she demanded. “We ain’t hurtin’ anyone.” She nuzzled him, lips seeking. “Remmie, you look so sad.”

  His blood was full of ale and fire. They burned away his grief. Burned caution, burned common sense, burned everything but desire.

  All I feel these days is pain. I want to feel something—anything—else.

  “Don’t be sad,” the girl whispered. “For a little while, don’t be sad.”

  “All right,” he said. “I won’t be.”

  And let desire have its way.

  “Barl, my love… what mischief are you planning?”

  Twisted in restless sleep, Barl heard herself moan. “Go away, Morgan. You’re a dream. You’re just a dream.”

  “You’re planning something, my love. I can feel it. There is a fire in your mind.”

  Was he free? Had he freed himself? Weeping, she tried to feel him as he could feel her. But all she felt was rage and grief. Were those passions his… or hers? She couldn’t tell.

  “You are mine, Barl. For ever and always. Come home, my love. I’ll keep you safe.”

  “You won’t. You can’t. Oh, Morgan, don’t you know what you’ve become?”

  “Of course, my love. I am the greatest mage the world has ever known.”

  “The greatest murderer,” she told him, still weeping. “The greatest monster. You should’ve told me what you were planning, Morgan. I could’ve stopped you. I could’ve saved Rumm. And now it’s too late. You’re lost.”

  His fury drenched her dreamworld scarlet. “Lost? Not lost, you foolish girl. Found. And when I find you, you’ll find—”

  “You’ll never find me, Morgan. Not in the flesh. Not in the world. Soon I’ll be gone from you, far, far away, and the mages I stopped you from killing, they’ll—”

  She felt him strike her, as though they raged at each other face to face. The pain was shocking.

  “You will not leave me, Barl! I forbid it! You bitch, you slut, you treacherous whore! You will not—”

  “Barl! Barl! For pity’s sake, wake up!”

  She opened her eyes, panting, fingers pressed to her wet, burning cheek. On his knees beside her cot, Remmie snatched her wrist and pulled her hand away. Turned milk-pale, staring, then slumped on his heels. Released her. His breathing in her small tent sounded ragged and loud.

  “There’s a handprint on your face,” he said dully. “So it’s not just a dream, is it? Somehow he’s really found you.”

  His pain hurt more keenly than the blow from Morgan’s mind. “I tried to tell you, Remmie.”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “You did.”

  Weeping again, she sat up and reached for him. “Don’t be afraid. He’s not free yet. Maybe he never will be. My binding could still hold.”

  Remmie shook his head. “You don’t believe that. If you believed it, you’d never—” His voice broke. “Prove you believe it, Barl. Abandon this mad plan.”

  She let her hand fall. “I can’t, Remmie. I can’t take that chance.”

  “Yes, you can,” he said harshly. “For me, you can. Barl, you owe me that much. For Irielle, you owe me.”

  And that was a second blow, even crueller than Morgan’s. “Remmie.”

  His eyes flint hard, he pushed unsteadily to his feet. “But you won’t. Because you’re Barl Lindin, and you have to be right.”

  She scrambled off the cot. “I am right! Remmie, d’you think I’d do this if—”

  “You’ve slept the day away,” he said, stepping back. “The Olken are gathering now. I’ll go and tell Venette and Elder Chaffie you’re coming.”

  “No, Remmie, wait, I—”

  The tent’s door flap fell closed behind him.

  Shaken, Barl stared blankly at the drab, oiled-felt wall. Felt her fingers creep up to touch where Morgan had struck her.
/>   Oh, Remmie.

  Sat in Gribley’s crowded hall with Bannet, Del nowhere to be seen, Jervale watched Barl Lindin and her brother and the other Doranen mage, Lady Martain, enter with Elder Chaffie. The look on Remmie Lindin’s face chilled him.

  Something’s wrong.

  He tried to catch Barl Lindin’s eye, but the mage was inward-looking, her face paler than ever. There was a faint red mark on her right cheek he’d not seen before.

  “Hush now,” said Chaffie, her hands raised. “Mage Lindin has some things to say.”

  As Chaffie took her seat, and voice by voice the hall fell silent, Barl Lindin stepped forward. “My dear Olken friends, I must ask your forgiveness. When I first told you our story, there was a part I left out. I didn’t think you needed to know it, but I was wrong. So now I must tell you, for it will explain why I need you to do what you must do, so we all can be safe.”

  A buzz of consternation. Bannet leaned close. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  Jervale swallowed, churned with unease. “Nor do I.”

  “There is a mage I have not mentioned,” Barl Lindin said, her blue eyes haunted. “He was a friend once, but no longer. His magework corrupted him. He became a great danger. And when Dorana began to fall apart, we left him behind. But now he’s looking for us, and I fear that if he finds us he will wreak a terrible vengeance. Not just on the Doranen, but on the Olken as well, for helping us.”

  Chaffie stood. “Why would he come looking?”

  “Because he loves me… and because he thinks I betrayed him.”

  “And did you?” said Chaffie.

  In the hall’s ordinary torchlight, Barl Lindin’s eyes shone with tears. “Yes.”

  Uproar. Loud voices, stamping feet, folk leapt up with fists waving. The mages stared at each other. Lady Martain said something, her voice smothered by Olken anger.

  Giddy with dismay, Jervale sat unmoving, his rudely woken instincts clamouring as loudly as his fellow Olken. Even Bannet was protesting. Lur’s green and growing future was set to go up in flames. If he didn’t do something, say something…

  Ignoring Bannet’s cry, he shoved his way along their row of seats and joined Barl Lindin at the front of the hall. Waved his arms and shouted for folk to hear him. But no-one was listening. He turned to her, despairing.

  An explosion of glimfire silenced every raucous voice.

  “Listen to her!” Jervale said loudly, before Chaffie or anyone else could speak. “If you love your families, listen.”

  “I understand your disappointment,” said Barl Lindin, into the shocked hush. “But I promise, I have no more secrets. And I promise this, too, that even if Morgan did not pose a danger, still the people of Lur would be in dire peril. But with your help, I can save you.”

  “So you claimed before, Mage Lindin,” said Chaffie, sharply. “Now you’d best explain.”

  Nodding, Barl Lindin clasped her hands before her. “With Doranen magework I can create a wall around Lur that will keep Morgan, and all those other warlike nations, at bay. And with that same magework I can tame the weather to my hand. I can make sure your land never suffers drought or famine again.”

  Jervale startled, pricked by memory. A wall around Lur. That golden shimmer in the mountains. And the lush, green hills, the fields heavy with grain.

  “She’s telling the truth,” he said quickly, before there was more shouting. “I’ve seen it.”

  Chaffie stepped forward, waving at everyone else to keep them quiet. “Jervale, isn’t it? From Toblin hamlet, out to the west?”

  He swallowed, his mouth dry. “That’s right.”

  “And you’ve seen this? How have you seen it?”

  “I… don’t rightly know, Elder Chaffie.” He could feel the Doranen mages looking at him, and the amazement of his fellow Olken. “I’ve been this way my whole life. I see things, dream them, then they happen. I’ve seen Lur more lush and bountiful than it’s ever been, safe, and I know it’s because of these mages. I know we have to trust them, for if we don’t, there’ll be strife.”

  Chaffie looked him up and down. “You know that, do you? You’d risk your life on it?”

  He made himself look at wide-eyed, staring Bannet, and then searched for the other five Olken he’d seen in his dream. Finding them, one by one, he felt that odd, inward click that told him yes, don’t be frighted, you tread the right path.

  “I would, Elder Chaffie.”

  Chaffie snorted. “You would. And tell me, Jervale… why should any of us believe you?”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Jervale wanted to look at Barl Lindin, but didn’t dare. Instead he looked at the crowd of Olken gathered to hear the Doranen. Felt the dizzy twist that told him another knowing was on him, and pointed at a woman seated a handful of rows behind Bannet.

  “You there. You weren’t s’posed to speak for your village, but the man who was chosen upped and broke his leg.”

  “Is that true?” said Chaffie, her thin, worry-worn face sombre.

  The woman nodded, wary. “Aye. But I’ve spoke on it. This Jervale could’ve heard mention.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Chaffie folded her arms. “Can you prove it?”

  No. He couldn’t. For the first time in his life, he willed his inner voice to whisper. Waited… waited…

  “You,” he said, pointing again. “Have you and me chinwagged since I got to Gribley?”

  The man he singled out shook his head. “Just to say good morning.”

  “Your wife’s nibby-cakes give you a gripe but you ain’t got the dibble to tell her.”

  A ripple of nervous laughter, as the man’s mouth dropped wide. Looking again to Chaffie, Jervale felt his eyes drift almost closed.

  “When you were a tiddy girl in Crick hamlet, Elder Chaffie, your best friend paid no never-mind to her mama and she drowned down the well.”

  Chaffie gasped. “I’ve not told a soul in Gribley of that.”

  “I could spend half the night plucking folks’ secrets,” he said, suddenly weary. “Can’t see what good I’d do. Either you believe me, or you don’t. But ask yourself this. I’m Olken. Why would I lie for a Doranen mage?”

  The other Olken murmured, heads nodding. Pursing her lips, Chaffie turned to the Doranen. “You’ve not put him up to this?”

  “No,” said Barl Lindin. “We will have your help honestly, or we’ll not have it at all.”

  With a glance at the crowd, Chaffie sighed. “We’d help if we could, but we ain’t got magic.”

  “No,” said Barl Lindin, carefully. “But you do have your singing. That’s what I need.”

  “Our singing?” Chaffie looked taken aback. “How d’you know about that?”

  Jervale bit his tongue. If Barl Lindin answered truthfully, she’d likely land him in such strife…

  “I’m a mage, Elder Chaffie,” she said, grave. “I know many things.”

  Elder Chaffie swallowed. “And our singing’s all you want?”

  “Yes. That’s all.”

  As relieved muttering broke out, Jervale felt a nasty prickle of foreboding.

  No, that ain’t all. Here’s where things start to turn rotten.

  But before he could sound a caution, Barl Lindin’s brother gave her an almost unfriendly look and stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Elder Chaffie. My sister does not make herself clear. She needs you to abandon your singing. She needs to take Lur’s power, and use it, and leave none of it for you.”

  Fresh uproar, filling the hall to its rafters. Staring at Barl Lindin, Jervale saw that her brother was right… and in that heartbeat every dreadful dream of black hail and crimson lightning and calamity battered through him.

  We can’t let her do that. If we give her our earth songs we’ll be jumping ourselves off a cliff, just like poor Ma Gammil.

  He didn’t know the how of it. He didn’t know the why. He only knew this meant disaster, just as he knew that back home, Tam and Rinna were mourning their dead son.
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br />   “Please!” Barl Lindin shouted. “Hear me out!”

  But no-one was listening… so again, she used her glimfire to stun the hall into silence.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, sweeping them with her piercing gaze. “I must ask this difficult thing, because Morgan is coming and you are dying from drought. I can save Lur. I can. But not without you.”

  Lady Martain stepped forward. “People of Lur,” she said, breaking her silence for the first time since she’d told them her name. “This Morgan we speak of? He murdered my husband. And I tell you he would see every woman in Lur widowed. Every man bereft of his wife and every child made an orphan. I loved him like a son, once. But if I could, now I’d kill him. Do what we’re asking. It is your only hope.”

  Looking around the hall, Jervale saw Lady Martain’s words strike every Olken like blows. And he knew she spoke the truth. He knew Morgan Danfey was Lur’s bitter death…

  But so is Barl Lindin. They’re forever entwined.

  “Jervale…”

  And that was Chaffie. Sickened, he turned to her. “Yes?”

  “What do you say? What do you see? Will Lur’s drought end on its own?”

  More than anything, he wanted to lie. But if he lied, he’d twist his gift. If he lied, he’d not be able to face his Tilly.

  “No, Elder Chaffie. I don’t see that.”

  “And this mage they speak of. Have you seen him?”

  His heart was breaking. He was weeping inside. “I have, Elder Chaffie. He’s as wicked as they say.”

  Chaffie shuddered. “And what else do you see?”

  “I—I—” He pressed a fist to his breast, feeling a pain there as cruel as a knife. “I see our ruin if we don’t help them. And I see our ruin if we do.”

  “So we are ruined regardless?” Chaffie shook her head. “You are no help to me, Jervale.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, desperate. “What I mean is, we must help them. Only we can’t abandon our singing. If we do, we’ll rue the day.”

  “And if you don’t, I can’t save you,” said Barl Lindin. “The incants and sigils of my magework are powerful and dangerous. Should your earth-singing disturb them, the consequences will be calamitous.”