The White Mists of Power

by Rusch, Kristine Kathryn

  The hounds howled. The hound masters’ muscles bulged as they fought to keep the hounds steady. Dakin took a step away from them, their fervor making him nervous. Do you think that is wise? the Enos had asked. Dakin shook the voice from his head. The hunts had worked before. They would continue to work.

  He stared at the forest, wondering why the mist seemed less opaque.

  ii

  Seymour leaned against a tree, gathering his luck around him. All morning he had heard the baying of the hounds, the mournful wailing that meant someone was about to die. The hounds had never before come so deeply into the forest. Either someone had run far, which Seymour doubted, or Lord Dakin finally realized that Seymour was alive.

  The cold ground dug into his backside. He had been shaking for hours. He had survived the hounds once, through luck and some careful preparations. Usually, though, his luck was poor. He couldn’t count on his magic saving him again.

  Seymour stood. He had a set of traps scattered a few yards away. He would try a spell once he was certain the hounds were after him. When that spell failed, he would run for the traps. He could catch at least two dozen hounds in those traps; that would stall them for a time and at least give him a lead. He hoped to get enough of a lead to make it to the city safely.

  A twig snapped. Seymour swallowed. Branches to his left rustled. He had heard the hounds. They hadn’t been that close, he was sure of it. Still, he grabbed his ebony walking stick and finished placing his luck web. He remembered what the hounds were like, their mouths dripping, teeth sharp and pointed. He had seen them come back from a hunt once, bloody froth on their lips. He stood, clutched the stick to his chest, prepared to shove the stick into the ground and begin a chant should he see a hound.

  A man burst through the thick blackberry brambles and stumbled on the dirt. His long black hair was matted and tangled with leaves and twigs, his face bloody and dirt-covered. His clothes hung in tatters, and he had lost one shoe. He wouldn’t survive much longer.

  Seymour took a deep breath. The hounds were chasing someone else, not him. He was safe.

  A hound howled. The sound rang through the trees. The man glanced over his shoulder, the fear on his face clear. He was heading toward Seymour’s hiding place. Another hound howled. They had found his scent. Seymour bit his lower lip. If he helped the man, he might have Lord Dakin after him again. But if he didn’t help, the hounds would tackle the man and tear the skin off while he still lived.

  Seymour’s hands shook as he lowered his staff to shin level. The man turned forward just before he reached the staff. He tried to jump, but his left foot caught on the round black surface and he tripped, sprawling on the pine needles at Seymour’s feet. The man rolled over and started to push himself up, but Seymour grabbed his arm and raised a single finger to his lips.

  He moved his staff, checked to see if it was unmarked. The ebony was as smooth as it had been the day Lord Dakin had given the stick to him. Seymour ripped a piece of bloodied cloth from the man’s pants. The man was still on his knees, panting, as if he were trying to catch his breath before running again.

  “Wait,” Seymour whispered. He tied the bloody cloth to the staff. He could barely breathe. He had been prepared to do this spell, but he had hoped he wouldn’t have to. He had never done it successfully. He had hoped that he would have enough luck, but as he stood at the edge of the clearing, traps on one side, hounds on the other, he knew that he would fail.

  The underbrush thrashed. Seymour thought he could hear the hounds snuffling forward. The man was getting to his feet slowly, as if he were in great pain. Seymour shoved the staff into the hard dirt. He closed his eyes, picturing his luck web rising from his shoulders and wrapping itself around the staff. He shaped the web into the form of the man behind him. Then Seymour opened his eyes and snapped his fingers.

  He could see nothing different. Panic rose in his stomach. The man had gotten to his feet and was swaying as if he were going to fall again. Seymour grabbed the man by the waist and propelled him forward. They had to get out of there, get behind the traps.

  They stumbled forward, between the tall, moss-covered trees. Seymour stopped and reached into the undergrowth, setting the traps. They had to work. If they didn’t he would be in trouble. As it stood, he figured that he could take the man home for at least a short time. Lord Dakin didn’t know that Seymour still lived, which meant that he didn’t know about the cabin, as Seymour had feared all morning.

  He led the man down the dirt-covered bank into the brook. It was a dying tributary of the river that bordered Dakin’s land–barely enough water to get their feet wet–but enough to stall the hounds after they escaped the traps. Seymour helped the man through the water and up the other bank to the small clearing where his hut stood.

  A howl echoed through the forest, followed by several more. Seymour had heard that sound from a distance four times in the past three weeks. The hounds had found their quarry. The man turned, his entire body trembling. Seymour felt his own shoulders relax. The Old Ones were smiling on him. The spell had worked.

  “We have a little time now,” he said. “The hounds think they have found you.”

  The man glanced once at Seymour and then looked away. The man’s reaction–or lack of reaction–stifled some of Seymour’s pleasure at his success. The man should have been surprised that a magician had helped him. Instead he seemed to accept it. Seymour shrugged inwardly, wondering who the man was and why Lord Dakin wanted to kill him.

  They walked across the path leading to the hut. Grass almost as tall as Seymour brushed against them, tickling his skin and making him itch. He was glad that he hadn’t cut the grass away from the path. It would be hidden to anyone who didn’t know it was there.

  The hut was made of stone and smelled damp. Seymour stepped ahead of the man and pushed open the heavy wooden door. Inside, the hut was dark and chilly. The fire had gone out. Seymour had to squint to see the furniture. He helped the man into a chair beside the fireplace, then stacked fresh wood inside the hearth, and started a new fire. When he had come here the first time, he had used the last of his luck to do a simple child’s spell on the fires made in the hearth. Any smoke rising from the fire would be colorless and odorless. He was glad that spell had succeeded.

  As soon as small flames licked at the logs, Seymour rose. The man hunched in the chair, his hands to his face, breathing heavily. Seymour found his water bucket, dipped a cup in it, and touched the man gently on the shoulder. The man raised his head and opened his eyes.

  He took the cup from Seymour and drank. The man’s gulping noises were loud in the quiet room. When the man finished, he leaned back and closed his eyes. Within seconds his breathing was easy and steady.

  Seymour stared at the man for a moment. His mother had taught him healings for burns, mostly as a protection from his own mangled spell-casting, but she had never taught him how to treat cuts and lacerations. Seymour had watched her, though, when she worked in Lord Dakin’s house. She always cleaned the wounds first.

  He brought the water bucket over to the chair. The fire was burning brightly now. Shadows danced across the walls. Light caressed the chairs, the bed, and the table that made up most of Seymour’s possessions. The man’s face was haggard in sleep. His mouth was slightly open, and his features had sunken into his face. His body was covered with cuts, and his skin hung raggedly around several wounds. In the forest he had been moving. Here he seemed almost dead.

  Seymour dipped several clean cloths into the water. He wrung out one and dabbed the man’s face. The man twisted and moaned, but did not wake up. Seymour gripped the man’s chin to keep his head from moving. Much of the blood was old and encrusted, and most of it came from scratches, probably caused by thorns. As Seymour cleaned away the blood, he saw how the scratches were layered: a scratch near a scratch near a scratch. The man had been running for days. He must have been very fit when he started.

  Seymour ripped back the man’s shirt and cleaned his chest.
Here the skin was covered with bruises as well as scratches. One thick red area wouldn’t come off, and it took Seymour a moment to realize that the man had an old, blurring tattoo.

  Seymour continued cleaning and tending, working his way down to the man’s legs. His thighs were scratched, but his knees were in tatters. The man had to have fallen a lot. The skin had almost scraped off, and the knees themselves were swollen. Even after wiping the dirt and blood away, Seymour couldn’t tell if there were other injuries. The scraping looked similar enough to a burn that Seymour called an herb witch ice spell his mother had taught him. Seymour could feel the power running through his hands, coating the man’s kneecaps with ice. The man shivered once, and sighed deeper into sleep.

  Seymour folded the dirty rags and set them in a corner. Then he grabbed the bucket, took it outside, and walked through the grass to the brook. He could hear the hounds baying, the cries of the retainers as they tried to urge the dogs forward. The retainers would have to get Dakin–and they would have to replace these hounds. By then, Seymour hoped, the trail would be cold.

  He poured out the water on the side of the brook, crouched, and filled the bucket again. The water here wasn’t deep, but it was cool and fresh. Without it he wouldn’t have been able to survive as long as he had in the hut. He didn’t know what he would have done if there had been a drought, like the one the land had suffered through 20 years before.

  He glanced back at his home. The hut still looked abandoned. The grass was tall and, except for the worn area near the side where he usually walked, looked undisturbed. No smoke rose from the chimney, and the place appeared dark. He would have to leave it soon. Once Lord Dakin realized who had tricked him, he would begin a search for Seymour and the man. Within a few days the lord would find the hut. Seymour sighed. He didn’t want to go to the city, but he didn’t know where else to go.

  When he went back inside, the man was still sleeping. Seymour set the water bucket in its place beside the door. He took the carrots, peas, and beans he had set aside for his dinner, mixed them with herbs and a few potatoes, added water, and poured them into the pot that hung over the fire. He puttered around the hut as the stew cooked, preparing the bed and cleaning a few dishes so that he could share his meal with his guest.

  As the scent of herbs and cooking vegetables filled the hut, Seymour heard a groan. The man had raised his head and was rubbing the back of his neck.

  “How long was I asleep?” he asked.

  “Not long.” Seymour stirred the stew. He added a little of his precious store of flour to thicken the broth. “Are you hungry?”

  “Ravenous.” The man stretched and winced. “I’m also very stiff.”

  “You will be for a few days.” Seymour ladled some stew into two bowls. Steam rose from the mixture, and in the half-light the vegetables looked very bright. He brought the bowls over to the man, pulled up a chair, and sat across from him.

  The man took his bowl and ate quickly. Seymour did not offer him more, knowing that a stomach that had been empty and stressed for several days could take only a little nourishment at a time. When the man had finished, he flexed one leg and then the other, but did not flinch, although the movements had to have been very painful. “You bandaged me.”

  Seymour nodded, pleased at the simple acknowledgment.

  “Thank you for helping me,” the man said. “I don’t think I would have survived another half day.”

  “I know.” Seymour took a bite of his stew. The gravy was too thick and had too much basil, but the food still tasted good.

  “You took an awful risk. Dakin’s hounds–” The man stopped himself. He gazed into the fire and shuddered once. Finally he faced Seymour again. “I’m Byron, late of Lord Dakin’s service.”

  Seymour smiled. “I’m Seymour. Also a former member of Lord Dakin’s household.”

  “You’re a wizard?”

  “A magician.” Seymour took another bite of stew. “My father was a wizard, but a great talent like his comes once in a century. I survive on a little talent and a handful of luck. This is the second time I’ve outwitted Dakin’s hounds.”

  Byron laughed. The sound was deep and warm. Seymour felt as if he had just found a fire on a cold and rainy day. “And Lord Dakin would have us believe his hounds are invincible,” Byron said. “He’ll be furious to see they’ve been beaten by a stick and a piece of bloody cloth.”

  “He’ll know whose stick that is.” Seymour took a final spoonful of stew. The food had lost its rich flavor. “He gave it to me a long time ago and let me take it with me as a ‘goodwill’ gesture when he sent me to the hounds.”

  Byron shifted in his chair. His movements seemed pain-filled. “Does he know where you are?”

  “No. And I don’t want him to find out.” Seymour sighed. “I was hoping that he would forget about me.”

  “Lord Dakin forgets nothing.”

  “I know.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, then Byron gripped the armrests on his chair. He slowly pulled himself up, putting some of his weight on his legs. Seymour hurried to his side, planning to catch him if he fell. Byron grabbed Seymour’s arm and stood completely. Gradually, Byron released his hold on Seymour, tottered for a moment, and then steadied himself.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this,” Seymour said.

  “I wanted to see if anything was broken. I fell more times than I’d like to remember.” Byron glanced at Seymour. “In fact, you tripped me.”

  Seymour shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d stop if I yelled.”

  “I wouldn’t have,” Byron swayed again.

  “You need to get back down,” Seymour said. “Take the bed.”

  Byron looked at the bed in the corner of the room. Seymour had restuffed the pallet to make it thick and covered it with two heavy blankets he had found in the hut. “It’s yours. I couldn’t.”

  Seymour put his arm around Byron’s waist. Seymour could feel the ridges of Byron’s spine. “Let’s go slowly.”

  “No, Seymour, I–”

  “No arguments. You’re taking the bed.” Together they moved across the room. Byron used Seymour’s shoulder to steady himself. His grip tightened with each step they took. By the time they reached the bed, Seymour knew that his shoulders would be bruised.

  Byron collapsed on the blankets. “This is soft.”

  “My one luxury. Someday I’m going to have a whole room full of luxuries.” Seymour bent over to help Byron under the blankets, but the younger man had already fallen asleep.

  Seymour sighed. Byron had said very little about himself. And now they seemed to be linked somehow. A hound bayed, the sound faraway and melancholy. Seymour shivered. He wished that he would wake up with the dawn and discover that the whole day had been a long, crazy dream.

  iii

  The Enos stood at the edge of the forest. Green tendrils of moss caressed her shoulders, touched her back. A moment before, something had pierced the earth and drawn magic. Weak magic, poor magic. She closed her eyes and reached for the source of the earth’s pain. The magician, the young one, the bad one. And beside him, the white mists of power. She could feel the hounds’ paws scratch the dirt, move toward them. The land remembered the blood, the violence from the last death.

  Time circles traveled across her mind. The magic would not hold the hounds. The white mists would die, pollute her land. The land would know even more violence, would come to love it. She felt the weight of blood pour over her shoulders, seep into her skin as blood would seep into the dry earth. She would change, no longer steady, no longer constant, seeking to fulfill a hunger that came from the outside: the sweetness of blood.

  With an apology to the Old Ones, she reached into the earth, grabbed the tip of the magician’s staff, and filled it with the image of the white mists. His scent coated the land, every pine needle, every bramble, every blade of grass. She wiped the real trail clean and then clutched the tree for support.

  She sent a silent apology to the Old One
s. They would understand. They would have to. She was guarding her land. They couldn’t punish her for guarding her land.

  The tree bark scratched her skin. She felt old, older than the land itself. She was guarding her land, but she was also helping a human, doing the forbidden. She hoped that her simple action had not caused the final time to begin.

  iv

  Seymour twitched in his sleep. He knew he was dreaming, but he couldn’t free himself from the images. He was running, running as fast as he could, his feet slipping in the fresh spring mud along the river, the hounds baying behind him. He had to get deep into the forest–deep enough that they wouldn’t find him–before he could cast his spell. Branches hit his face, his arms, causing the skin to sting. More than once he got a mouthful of bitter leaves and had to spit them out. Behind him, the hounds wailed, a long, thin sound that turned into a high, sustained note that cascaded into song. A song. Someone was singing. Seymour grabbed the sound as if it were a rope and pulled himself into wakefulness.

  His back ached from the thin pallet he had placed in front of the hearth. Sometime during the night he had covered himself with a cloak, but he was still cold. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up.

  The singing continued. A tall, thin man was setting a bowl on the table. He tilted his head from side to side as he worked, his voice running up and down in scales. He looked so different from the man who had crashed through the brambles the day before that Seymour hesitated before speaking.