Lackey, Mercedes - Mage Storms 04 - Darian's Tale 01 - Owlflight.doc

by Owlflight [lit]

  Was it that he wanted everything to come to him easily, as magic came to those in children's tales? Was he too lazy to work? If that was the case, Justyn wasn't sure how to remedy it, but that didn't seem right either. The boy wasn't actually lazy, but look at what he'd said this afternoon: that he didn't see any reason to expend a great deal of effort to do something much more easily accomplished with normal means, and perhaps it was only that Justyn hadn't been able to persuade him that those little exercises were the only way of building his ability and control to handle anything bigger.

  Or was there something else going on, something that Justyn didn't understand?

  Justyn could see some things for himself-the boy didn't like being made to feel that he was somehow "different" from the other children in the village. Perhaps part of his rebellion stemmed from the fact that his Talent for mage-craft was bound to set him farther apart from the others. Given the contempt with which the villagers regarded Justyn, he had no reason to assume that they would give him any more respect if and when he became a mage.

  And he certainly reacted badly whenever his parents were mentioned. But his parents, too, had been "different," very much so. The entire village had regarded them with suspicion and displeasure, anticipating that they would only bring more trouble than they were worth with them eventually. Some of the villagers had not been entirely certain that Darian's parents were human-the argument was that no human would ever choose to go out into the Pelagiris when there were safer ways of making a livelihood. A fallacious argument, to be sure, but the folk of Errold's Grove seemed to have a grasp on logic that was tenuous at best. But was it that Darian wished his parents had been the same as everyone else, and he was angry that they had been "different" and had made him "different" by default? Or was there some other thought going through his mind?

  "Bad blood, and reckless, that's what's in that boy," he heard with half an ear, and it occurred to him at that moment that every time anyone in the village so much as mentioned Darian's parents and lineage, it was with scorn and derision, and the certainty that "no good would ever come of those folks." Why, no wonder the boy reacted poorly! Every time the boy heard himself talked about, it was with the almost gleeful certainty that he would come to a bad end, or be nothing but trouble. As reluctant to show any sort of feeling as he was, still, for Darian those words must seem like a blow to the face, or more to the point, to the heart.

  Still, one would think that the boy would feel a little proper gratitude. Justyn certainly treated him well. He was hardly overworked, he had plenty of free time to himself, enough to eat, proper clothing to wear, and a comfortable place to sleep. There was no telling if he'd had all those things with his parents, but one would think he would be happy enough to have them now.

  Wait, think a moment. It is one thing to feel gratitude, it is another to be told over and over again just how grateful you should be, if only you weren't too much of a little beast to be appreciative. He's only a child, he can't understand how much of a burden one extra mouth to feed is for the people here. Folks with children would have to work that much harder to feed and clothe him, folks whose children are grown expect to be taken care of in their old age, not become caregivers all over again. He hadn't any skills that were useful to the folk here when he was left in their hands, so he wouldn't contribute anything toward his own keep for months or even years-but how is a child supposed to understand that?

  And as a child, his parents were naturally everything to him, the center of his young life, and being told they were idiots and deserved to get swallowed up by the Forest must surely make his blood boil. He must feel impelled to defend them, and yet since he was a mere child, he would be considered impudent and disrespectful if he did.

  Another thing that Justyn had noticed about him was that he had a great deal of difficulty in remaining still and concentrating. Perhaps that was characteristic of all young boys, but most were apprenticed to learn skills that involved physical work, not mental work. The boy had a restless heart, and the truth of it was that he was not well-suited to insular village life. He spent most of his free time, not with the three or four boys near his own age, but out in the "forbidden" Forest; whether he was just wandering, or exploring with a purpose, Justyn didn't know, but he certainly seemed to prefer the company of trees and birds to that of his own kind.

  And there are certainly times when I don't blame him for that.

  Justyn tied off the last of the stitches, and clipped all the threads as short as possible so that they wouldn't catch on something.

  "Now," he said to all three of them, although he wasn't at all sanguine about Kyle understanding anything he said. "I know you've heard this before, but it bears repeating. You all three know what happens when a wound goes septic. Kyle, please realize that if you let this wound sour, at best, you would be very, very sick and I would have to open up the wound, drain it, and cut or burn out part of the infected tissue. It would hurt a very great deal, both while I was doing it and afterward. You'd have much worse than a scar, then, and it would take much longer to heal. You would probably end up with a limp, or even lame, if the infection grew bad enough."

  Kyle grunted and nodded his agreement, his brown hair flopping into his vacant brown eyes. He brushed it away, and although the motion was slow, his hand was steady, arguing for a certain level of sobriety.

  "Now pay attention to what I have to tell you," he insisted. "You may have heard this before when someone else was hurt, but chances are you don't remember it as well as you think you do. Harris, Vere, I am counting on you to remind Kyle of all of this."

  "All right," Vere agreed, looking as if he felt put upon. Harris just grunted, clearly bored with the entire procedure. Knowing the two as he did, Justyn figured that Vere would try to remember to tell Kyle everything, and Harris would do so only if he happened to think about it.

  Justyn sighed, and hoped they wouldn't forget what he was about to tell them. At least Kyle's constitution was so robust that he could take a little neglect. "Once a day, the wound is to be washed in wine, just as I did before I closed it, and allowed to dry in the air."

  "Right," Kyle said vaguely. "Wash, and air-dry. Don't bandage it wet."

  "After it is dry, then put the salve I have given you on it, and put a dressing made of fresh, clean cloth over it. Don't put bear fat, or goose grease, or tallow, or river-weed, or anything else your granny used to use for wounds on it. Do you understand that? Forget your granny's and your mother's famous remedies, and stick with mine. Trust me on this, and remember that the Heralds sent me here for just this reason. I've seen and treated more wounds like this than there are people in the village."

  "Just the salve you give him," Vere sighed, as Kyle nodded so earnestly that Justyn had some hope that the man might actually remember what he'd been told.

  "At night, before you sleep, I want you to change the dressing again, with fresh, clean cloth. I want you to have all the rags you use for dressings washed thoroughly in boiling water and hung to dry in the sun." Sometimes he wondered if they'd pay more attention to the things he told them to do if he gave them some kind of nonsense to say over each task, as a kind of charm against sickness. But no, he was afraid that if he did that, they would trust in the charm and forget cleanliness. How could he get them to believe that there were invisible animals living in filth that made wounds fester, if he couldn't get them to believe in him?

  Thank the gods they at least knew the signs of infection and gangrene. "Examine the wound carefully each time you change the dressing, and if you see anything wrong, come to me at once. Remember, you're watching for infection, and that can include swelling, red streaks coming up or down your leg from the wound, skin that's hot to touch and more sore than it should be. Understand?"

  "Come to you at once," Kyle repeated, nodding vigorously.

  "All right," Justyn said, and sagged back in his chair. He waved a hand at them. "You can all go now."

  Harris and Vere each took one
of Kyle's arms and heaved him up out of his chair. Justyn didn't offer him any more of the precious poppy-powder; he didn't have much, and he had to save it. There was no telling when the next trader would come with the powder he'd ordered almost a year ago.

  Rather surprisingly, Kyle made it erect without too much in the way of a wobble, and he didn't lean on the two farmers nearly as much as Justyn thought he would.

  The benefits of an iron constitution and a head like a granite boulder, I suppose, he thought dispassionately. He'd probably have healed up all right without me, which is likely what Vere and Harris will be telling each other.

  He leaned back in his chair and massaged the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Kyllian had been right; this was a place where he-and a successor-were desperately needed, and it was a place where they would get little thanks and no credit for what they did. People honored the spectacular, not the everyday. Raise a dead man and bring him back to life, and they would hold you in awe. Keep him from dying in the first place with a little simple hygiene, and they ignored you.

  What was he to do? He had known what he was up against when he arrived here. And what was he going to do about a successor? If he couldn't somehow bring the boy around, he would have to find someone willing to do the hard work without any magic at all.

  Women tended to be more community minded than men, and in this village at least, they were used to taking on the more objectionable of community tasks; perhaps he ought to check among the girls and see if any of them were willing to learn all he could teach them about bonesetting and herbs and the like. It wouldn't hurt Darian to see that he had a rival for Justyn's tutelage. That might get him interested again when nothing else seemed to.

  The only problem with that idea was that it would be hard for a young girl to get a mature man to listen and obey her when it came to following instructions. That had been the idea behind sending a man here in the first place.

  If only I could regain my magic! If I could impress the people here, that might bring Darian around. If he just thought that he had a chance of being seen with respect as long as he learned what I have to teach, that might change his attitude.

  He turned his attention to the apple sitting on the plate on the end of the table where Harris had put it. He narrowed his focus and concentrated on the fruit, as he had so often and so easily, feeling a now-familiar headache arc across his head, just behind his right eyebrow. He didn't remember the blow that had felled him, but he fancied that it had felt a lot like that stabbing pain.

  He willed the apple to rise. This time! Surely this time!

  It wobbled a bit on the plate, but did not move.

  Still, he continued to concentrate on it, and it rocked faster and faster but still refused to rise, until the pain behind his right eye was enough to blind him. With a sigh, he dropped the apple with his mind, and it stopped moving.

  "I'm an old fraud," he said out loud. "I'm a failure and an old fraud, my apprentice hates me and hates magic, and you-" he looked at his cat, which was licking itself again "-probably aren't even a familiar. And even if you are, you're a failure, too. If a whirlwind came out of the sky and swallowed us all up, no one would ever notice, that's how unimportant we are. What do you think of that?"

  The cat went on cleaning itself, sticking a scraggly, flea-gnawed leg straight up in the air, arse toward Justyn. He chuckled bitterly, for the cat's silence seemed the only fitting comment.

  TWO

  Even grief as profound as Darian's could not be sustained for too long, and after lying exhausted in his hiding place for a time, other feelings began to penetrate his sorrow, all of them maddeningly persistent, and utterly ordinary. It was irritating-which in itself was irritating-to have stupid things like a nose that was sore and stuffed up from crying, and an ant crawling up his leg inside his breeches, intrude on something as profound as his grief. But that didn't stop them from intruding. His arms and legs felt cramped, his hands stung where he'd pounded them against the bark and scraped them, and one hip hurt, jammed as it was against the hard bark of the tree. Finally he decided it was time to leave. He sat up, his eyes sore and dry, and peered down through the branches to see if there was anyone about to catch him when he climbed down.

  There was no one working in the field below, and from the fact that the long shadows of the trees had crept over the village, he'd been up here a while. He guessed that the women who usually worked in the bean field had probably left their work to go prepare dinner for the men and children. The wind was in the wrong direction for him to catch aromas coming from the village, but it was a good bet that if he could smell anything, it would be the mingled aromas of stews, soups, pies and pasties, same as always.

  I wonder why they bother making individual dinners.

  Surely it would make more sense just to make one big pot of stew for the whole village, he thought, with a touch of contempt. After all, everyone in the village uses the same half-dozen recipes. I don't think anyone has ever tried to make anything new since I've been here.

  Perhaps it was that, as difficult as things were, there were still some who were more prosperous than the rest, who could afford a little more meat and spices in their food, and who made sure to enjoy that distinction from everyone else whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  As if by sharing a bit of spice with everyone else they'd lose the chance to lord it over their neighbors, he thought sourly. The half-dozen "well-to-do" families were the ones who seemed to go out of their way to complain about his behavior. As if they didn't already have the best houses in town, and can even pay somebody else to cook and clean for them!

  Still, if it was mealtime, he'd probably better be getting back to Justyn. There were still dishes to scrub, and the pasties to fetch from the baker, or the old wretch would probably forget to eat, and then Darian would get the blame if Justyn got sick. Sometimes he wondered how Justyn had gotten along before he came-but then he realized that the women had taken care of him, the same way they cared for Kyle. So the villagers had gotten something out of apprenticing him to Justyn; they'd been able to stop cleaning up after and cooking for the Wizard. No wonder they'd been in such a hurry to get him bound over!

  I'll have to clean up after Kyle, too, if I don't want to have to eat dinner in a room that looks like someone had butchered a pig there. Justyn is such a slob! How can he be so concerned with keeping wounds clean, and live the way he does? Wrinkling his lip a little with disgust, he stretched his arms and legs until the cramps went away, then climbed slowly down the side of the tree opposite the village. He didn't want anyone to catch sight of him if he could help it; he'd already lost a couple of hiding places by being careless.

  Here on the edge of the fields, where there was more sunlight, growth of bushes and vines was especially heavy, giving him cover that allowed him to get into the field without being seen. Already the air was hot and drowsy with midday heat, and hidden insects buzzed and droned on all sides of him. The ground here smelled damp; someone must have opened up the irrigation pipe for this field. He pushed through the dense underbrush until he came to a field of pole beans, and made his way through the rows of tall, tent-like arrangements of poles covered with climbing bean vines. They made a jagged hedge that was difficult to see through, and extended well over the top of his head. Eventually the field ended, and he reached the outskirts of the village on the northern side. He reentered Errold's Grove near the firing pit for pottery and the storage shed where the finished pieces were kept. He didn't see anyone, although the sounds of dinner being served and eaten were coming from every open window.

  It must be later than I thought. He still didn't feel much like hurrying, though; his bout of grief had pretty much killed his appetite, and with a bit of pique, he decided that Justyn could wait. If his Master was hungry, his Master could go fetch his own dinner from the baker, and clean a plate or two himself for a change.

  He made his way slowly along the paths between the houses, kicking
a round rock through the dust, nursing his grievances. The ordinary sounds of people who liked each other eating together only made him feel more abused and put upon, because he knew what those people must be thinking and saying about him. Vere and Harris had certainly recounted the tale of his defection to their families by now, and their wives had probably shared the story with others as they brought water from the well, or went to fetch dinner from the baker. So now everyone knew that Darian had shown his "true face" again, and they would be feeling very smug indeed. By suppertime tonight, he'd be the main topic of evening lectures to the family.

  They'll be looking at their children, and telling each other, "Thank the gods he isn't like Darian!" or "My boy would never act like Darian." Huh. As if they really had any idea half of what their precious children get into when they aren't watching.

  And the very next person he encountered would probably stop him in order to remind him of how ungrateful and unnatural he was. Every time he got into trouble-and "trouble" seemed to have a wide definition for these people-people would go out of their way to give him their own version of the lecture he'd already heard a thousand times or more- the sermon on how kind Justyn was for taking him in and apprenticing him without an apprenticing fee or any kind of familial relationship. Again. And again.

  At least Justyn himself usually left that part out, perhaps because he remembered only too well how he had pestered Darian's parents every time they came into Errold's Grove. Darian could recall at least a dozen times that Justyn had come to his Mum and Dad, separately or together, to urge on them a plan of apprenticing him into Justyn's service. There had been a great deal of fuss made about how dangerous it was for someone with Darian's "potential" to remain untrained in his magic. Darian remembered his Dad once telling his Mum that Justyn was trying to frighten them into giving Darian over to him, and that she shouldn't let the old man alarm her.