The Mage and the Magpie

by Austin J. Bailey

  “You still do not believe her?” he asked confrontationally.

  “On the contrary,” the younger man responded, brushing a lock of dark hair from his eyes and leaning forward thoughtfully. “I do believe her story‌—‌or at least I begin to. That is what worries me.”

  Archibald looked like he was about to ask a question, but then thought better of it, nodding to himself. He took his hat off and set it upside down on the table absently.

  “I don’t understand,” Brinley said. “Why don’t you believe me?”

  Cannon’s eyes narrowed slightly. As Brinley watched, his hair began to billow again, as if in an invisible wind. “Do you know what an idris is?” he asked her.

  The wind seemed to be growing outward from him. Soon there was a visible funnel cloud spiraling around him, gathering up dust. It expanded quickly. When the edge of it passed through her it felt like she had stepped in front of a large fan.

  “No,” she said hastily. “I don’t know.” Whatever was going on, things were taking a turn for the worse, she was sure of it. The whirlwind was building momentum now, picking up paper and other small objects. She felt like it should be a loud thing, but it was remarkably quiet, like the sound of distant whispers. “Are you doing this?” she asked, indicating the wind.

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes hard.

  “Is it magic?”

  He cocked his head a little at her question. “Have you never seen magic before?”

  “No. They don’t have it where I’m from.”

  Archibald spoke up suddenly. “No magic?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, not taking her eyes off the younger man.

  “This is magic,” he said firmly, raising his hands to the level of his shoulders. The wind instantly doubled in velocity, picking up several books and a lamp. The table began to rattle. Brinley’s heart pounded faster. This was too much. This couldn’t be happening.

  “It is not the kind of magic that they teach at this school, though,” he went on. “It is real magic, old magic, given to me by the Wind Mage.” He stared at her for a long moment and then lowered his hands. The whirlwind subsided to its normal size, and he continued in a level voice, “An idris is a giant,” he explained. “There were only two of them left in the world before their race was banished to the Wizard’s Ire. According to legend, the idris hunts in the daytime, taking the form of a child to lure unsuspecting victims back to its lair. They are said to be cunning, capable of fooling even the very wise.” He paused. “My master was led away by such a monster.”

  As the young man spoke, he drew a thin wooden box from the inside of his robe and laid it on the table. He slid the lid off slowly, measuring his movements by the tempo of his words. Then he withdrew two small vials of liquid. The first was a deep crimson red, the color of blood. Just looking at it made Brinley feel uneasy. The second one looked friendlier; it was bright yellow and reminded her vaguely of lemonade.

  “You must drink this,” he said gravely, pushing the red vial toward her.

  She glanced at Archibald, but he was staring into his hat, determined, it seemed, not to meet her eye. She looked at the boy beside Archibald, who had yet to say a word.

  “Come on now,” Mr. Can said, passing the vial to her.

  “What does it do?” she asked warily.

  He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “It will test you.”

  She took it. “Why?”

  “Because,” he said quietly, “I now believe that you are one of two things. Your story is so unbelievable that it must be either entirely true, or entirely false. If, on the one hand, you are simply a girl as you say, then you were summoned here by powers that I do not understand. The thing that brought you here is a power designed to summon the Magemother. It follows that you must be a person of incredible importance. As such, you need my help, and I need yours.” His voice grew deathly quiet. “If, on the other hand, you are an idris, come for me like you came for my master, then this is exactly how I would expect you to appear‌—‌with a story that I could not resist.”

  He stared at her calmly for a moment. “If you are what you say you are, you’ll be fine. But if you don’t drink, I’ll have to assume you are an idris. I’ll have to kill you.”

  Brinley felt a cold chill run down her spine. The calm certainty with which he spoke unsettled her. She took the vial and drank. It tasted like…nothing. It tasted like liquid air, maybe, or dry water.

  Nothing happened.

  She looked at Archibald, who was darting glances back and forth between her and Mr. Can. “Well?” he asked. The young man said nothing, but he handed her the other vial.

  “Drink this now,” he said, and smiled at her for the first time. She took it. It smelled faintly of sunflowers.

  Suddenly she was distracted by an odd tingling sensation in her fingers. Her heart began to beat faster. The warmth fled from her arms and legs as if she’d jumped into freezing water. By contrast, her head felt like it was burning up; beads of sweat were forming on her brow. Her mind rushed, lashing out wildly in panic. The vial tipped in her hand as she slid to one side.

  The young man crossed to her in an instant, catching the vial before she could spill it. He lifted it to her lips and tipped the contents into her mouth. It was hot‌—‌not in the way that soup or tea is hot, but it filled her with warmth. The taste had an immediate calming effect upon her mind, causing the strange thoughts to vanish.

  “How do you feel?” Mr. Can asked.

  “Okay,” she said uncertainly. She felt nauseous.

  “Good,” he said, straightening up and smiling at her again. He held out his hand. “I am Cannon.”

  Brinley held out her hand and tried to smile, but ended up grimacing at another wave of nausea. “Nice to meet you,” she said faintly. Then she leaned forward and threw up in Archibald’s hat.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In which Brinley pretends to be a boy

  An hour later, she felt much better. She had pestered the two men with questions for a few minutes and obtained some answers. She was in the country of Caraway, which was in the realm of Aberdeen, where a man named Remy was king. Hugo was his son, and Archibald was one of his advisors. Cannon explained little about himself.

  They knew little of Earth, including how to pronounce it. To them it was nothing more than a distant legend‌—‌an old story. They did not know who her mother was. On this point, Brinley had the feeling that both men had something more to say, and it was apparent that they had an ample amount of questions for each other, but it was determined that they could keep the good men of the Magisterium waiting no longer. The banging on the doors had resumed.

  “Very well,” Cannon said when Archibald mentioned this. “I could use something to eat.” In that spirit, they determined they would continue their discussion over dinner. When they attempted to exit the hall, Cannon instructed her to brush the dust off her as best she could. “Better if we don’t have to explain you to everyone at once,” he said.

  As soon as they made it outside, Archibald and Cannon were pelted with questions. Three old men were waiting for them, and others began to arrive as soon as word spread that the doors had opened. Soon the men were surrounded by a throng of people.

  “Why don’t you come with me, dear,” a woman’s voice said. Brinley turned to see an older woman talking to the boy named Hugo.

  “Don’t worry, my lord,” she continued. “I’ll have you back to Archibald soon enough, but they will be explaining themselves for a long time, and I’d rather not stand around just to listen to them lie.” She smiled in a friendly way, and there was no note of judgment in her voice. “I’ve heard that you have a certain fondness for the Magisterium.”

  “Uh, yeah…” he responded slowly. “How did you hear that?”

  “Your father told me, in a recent letter requesting a new tutor for you from the university. He seemed to think that bringing the university to you might be just the thing to further your education. At any rate,” s
he continued, “I’m on my way to see something rather interesting just now, and I thought you might like to come along. I’m sure Archibald won’t mind.”

  “Well, sure, I guess,” he looked around then, and Brinley wondered if he was trying to find her.

  She tried to catch sight of Archibald or Cannon through the group of people, hesitant to accompany the boy away from the only other people she knew at all, but the woman was already leading him out of the doorway. She decided to follow.

  “My name’s Denmyn,” the woman said as they walked. She wore a pale blue silk gown, gray hair tied behind her head with a delicately patterned scarf. “I am the school counselor,” she continued, “which means that I am a wizard, but not a powerful one, and that I am a master, but not an important one. Mostly people come to me for advice, and I have to admit, that is probably due more to my looking like a kind old granny than to any wisdom my advice might contain.”

  Hugo smiled. So he was getting a tour of the Magisterium from the official school grandmother. This was awesome.

  “I am on a way to pay a visit to Tabitha‌—‌our bird keeper.”

  Hugo felt a jolt as he remembered the strange girl who had visited him in the middle of the night. Apparently she really did live at the Magisterium.

  They took a right turn through a small iron door that led out onto a causeway. It jutted out from the rest of the structure, hanging over the ocean below them.

  “Oh!” Brinley exclaimed. She had never seen the ocean before.

  “What’s that?” Denmyn asked.

  “Uh‌—‌” Hugo looked around. “I, er‌—‌didn’t realize we were so near the coast.”

  “Yes,” Denmyn said. “The Magisterium was built on the very edge of civilization. The first king of Aberdeen wanted it as far away from him as he could manage. In those days people barely tolerated magic.”

  Brinley glanced over the edge of the causeway as a large wave crashed against the wall of the Magisterium far below them. She wondered what it would be like to grow up in a world where magic was real. She thought of the way that Cannon had made the wind circle around him. He had been surrounded by people after that. Had he gotten in trouble for using magic? She wished she could ask her questions.

  An idea struck her then. She lowered her voice, trying to make it sound more like Hugo’s, and asked, “Why are Cannon and Archibald in trouble?”

  A gust of wind blew a few of her words away before Denmyn answered.

  “Speak up please, Prince Hugo,” Denmyn said. “I know you have a stronger voice than that.”

  Hugo glared at the place where her voice came from as she repeated her question.

  “Archibald isn’t in trouble,” Denmyn explained in response. “He’s the king’s right-hand man, you know, and beyond the laws of this place, as you are.” She swept a hand up, indicating the towers of the Magisterium above them. “Cannon, on the other hand…well, he confiscated one of the most ancient wings of the Magisterium, didn’t he? The masters have been trying to get in all day without success.” She smiled. “That bruised their pride quite deeply, I think. No doubt that was the greater crime.”

  “But why did he do it?” Hugo asked before Brinley could. He didn’t want her to keep making him sound girly. “Isn’t he a student here?”

  “Oh, no,” Denmyn said seriously. “Cannon is far too wild to go to school.” She smiled faintly. “I don’t think we could contain him. He is the apprentice of the Wind Mage‌—‌a true mage.”

  “A true mage?” Brinley asked, her voice ridiculously low now.

  Denmyn actually stopped to look at Hugo. “Coming down with something, my lord? Your voice keeps cracking‌—‌though I suppose that happens at your age. Anyway, I thought your education was better than this. Perhaps I should come and tutor you myself.”

  Hugo looked furious. Brinley couldn’t help feeling a little bad. On the other hand, it was nice to be getting answers.

  “Sorry,” she whispered to Hugo, but he waved her off.

  “There are seven true mages,” Denmyn was saying. “In our world there is enough magic running through the blood of the people that almost anyone can become a decent wizard with training, but the true mages are called by the Magemother herself‌—‌here we are.” They’d reached the end of the walkway and Denmyn pulled open a wooden door set into the face of a curving tower wall. “Up we go,” she said, stepping onto a steep stone stair.

  “Who is the Magemo‌—‌” Brinley began, but Hugo elbowed her angrily. “I’ll tell you later,” he hissed at her through clenched teeth.

  They took the steps slowly, keeping pace behind the old woman. The stairway seemed to go on forever.

  “Who are we going to see again?” Brinley asked, and Hugo added hastily, “Tabitha?” He didn’t want Denmyn to think that he hadn’t been listening.

  “Yes,” the counselor replied. “Tabitha is our bird keeper. It’s a very important position here at the university.”

  “Why?” blurted Brinley.

  “Why?” Denmyn said incredulously (Hugo actually slapped his palm to his face in embarrassment). “Because of the news, of course! Birds see everything, hear everything, go everywhere. How else could we know what’s going on in the world? Don’t you use birds at the castle?”

  Brinley thought of how the news got around in Colorado. They had never had a TV in their home (her father always said they were a waste of time), but she had watched the news at other people’s houses. She thought of newspapers and reporters and e-mail and spy satellites.

  “Yes, of course,” Hugo said quickly. “I was just checking.”

  They walked in silence for a while. The stairs were long and steep and it seemed like Denmyn was breathing too hard to answer many more questions. After a few minutes Brinley took up her Hugo voice again. “How high does it go?”

  Her question was answered by the last turning of the stairs, which revealed a small circular room with a high roof. It had windows so large that the whole room seemed to be open to the sky outside.

  “Ugh!” Brinley clamped both hands over her nose at the smell that suddenly overwhelmed her.

  Hugo rolled his eyes.

  “I mean, wow, that’s…really something,” she said, noticing that Denmyn, who had collapsed into a chair to rest, seemed not to mind the smell either.

  “Yes,” Denmyn said, wrinkling her nose finally. “It is, isn’t it? I suppose I come up here too much to notice it.”

  Brinley looked down at her feet and found the source of the smell. Two large beams had been placed crosswise in the center of the tower floor, and apparently served as a walkway. The beam seemed to be kept fairly clean, but the tower floor itself was covered with feathers, droppings, and an impressive assortment of other unsavory things that had no doubt fallen from above. The ceiling of the tower looked to Brinley like the bottom of a giant nest.

  “Up we go,” Denmyn said, heaving herself out of the chair and walking across the beam to an old wooden ladder that leaned against the wall. Brinley followed her, sliding in behind Hugo. She could hear the birds now. By the sound of it, there were more birds above her than she had ever seen in one place. She climbed the ladder, rising through a small circular opening in the bottom of the nest. It was so small she doubted a grown man could fit through. When she got to the top, she dismounted the ladder and ducked as a pair of birds flew past. They were everywhere. Some flitted from nest to nest while others were flying in from the open air to feed at an immense trough of bird seed cut into the stone.

  Brinley stepped away from the ladder, moving to stand beside Hugo, who was also staring around in amazement. Nests of all sizes covered the floor and filled the rafters to the top of the pointed roof. Elegant marble birdbaths were set into stone pillars where the beams met the edge of the tower wall. Brinley thought briefly about how long it would take to haul water all the way up the tower to fill those. Then she caught sight of Tabitha and forgot everything else.

  The girl was hanging upside dow
n in the rafters, talking to the birds. She wore dark blue overalls and shiny black boots that came up almost to her knees. Her eyes were oddly large, and she held them open as far as she could, as if she were trying to take in as much as possible. She was hanging from her knees, like Brinley herself had done at the park as a child, and talking animatedly to a group of solid turquoise house finches that were flying around her head. At least, they appeared to be house finches; except house finches were not usually solid turquoise. Birds here might be entirely different than those from home, she realized, startled.

  “Tabitha,” Denmyn called gently over the noise of the birds. Tabitha looked down at them, and then reached up to grab the beam with her hands. Untangling her legs, she swung down and dropped nimbly onto the beam below her. She had curly brown hair that fell to her shoulders. A few small feathers and twigs rested in it casually, as if they belonged.

  “Hi, Denmyn,” she said. “What are you doing here so early? Ooooh, who’s that with you?” She bobbed up and down a little when she talked, and was now craning her neck around Denmyn in order to get a better look. “Hi, Hugo. I’m glad you came to visit me. Why don’t you bring friends up more often, Denmyn?” she asked, stepping back and glancing up at the old lady with a hurt expression.

  “You two know each other?” Denmyn said in surprise.

  Tabitha blushed, and Hugo tried to think of the best way to explain how they had met. Before he could start, Tabitha was waving the question away. “Come look!” she said, dancing over to a birdbath. “Flitlitter came to visit today. You won’t believe what he has to say!”

  They followed her over and a dozen or so birds backed away from the edge of the stone basin to make room. Tabitha was holding a magpie in her hands. Brinley was surprised to see that it wore a small bandage around its breast.