Epik’s grandmother, Ashah, had asked that Epik learn magic properly, her dying request. After gifting him the remainder of her magic, she asked that he seek knowledge not just from the books he owned but from these women who had taught magic for centuries to pupils across the continent.
But learning magic was only a part of Epik’s plan. On his own initiative, he and Kavya had begun to gather allies. They hoped to prevent Epik’s evil grandfather, the Grand Sovereign, from stealing magic from children who had yet to realize and control their power.
So, they sought out children with magic in the pit of their soul. Some had come eagerly, some had parents who wished to hide them away instead. Those families stole away in the night, never to be heard from again.
Kids were a start, but now came the next phase of Epik’s grand plan. He sought out any trained magician willing to come over to their side. No matter how deep or shallow the well of magic, any witch or wizard was welcome to join and eventually fight alongside them.
So far in this endeavor, Epik had only met one supporter of the Grand Sovereign. The meeting didn’t end particularly well for that particular mage—Epik was learning to hone his magic, after all.
Epik reached out to the realm and tapped into the particular magical power Kavya had given him. Then he amplified it, sensing that they were close as close could be to a magical disturbance.
“They have to be around here somewhere,” Epik whispered. “I feel a presence.” But who? It wasn’t a child. Whether it be a dark wizard in service to the Grand Sovereign was anyone’s guess.
“Is that a door?” Millie pointed.
Sure enough, the outline of a door manifested in the cracked brick on Epik’s right.
As if by magic, he thought.
A witch or wizard waited on the other side. Epik shook off the feeling he was just a halfling standing at a magical door asking someone to take his side.
He knocked.
They had a choice—to stay cloaked and allow Epik’s spell to ghost them through the door, unseen but perhaps sensed by the other magician. Or they could reveal themselves and walk through the door as doors were intended.
No one answered.
Epik undid the spell. The two small and formerly-cloaked figures appeared from nowhere. With some trepidation, the halfling pushed the brick and the door opened without a creak, allowing the two of them entry.
What they found was a sort of shop, dusty and drab. It reminded Epik of Gabby’s—his father’s, he corrected himself—old wizard supply store. But instead of vanishing powders, crystal balls, and a make-your-own wizard staff station, there were tiny gizmos everywhere and larger instruments left haphazardly on the floor.
No wall was bare. Small mechanical objects filled each shelf to overflowing, and the shelves were five high to a wall. In the center of it all was a large wooden table. Hunched over the table was a man with what looked like three sets of eyeglasses. The first were the regular sort, then a red-tinted monocle over his right eye, and over that, smaller still, was a blue-tinted monocle.
He looked up from the object in his hands, then shoved the red and blue monocles to his forehead. His hair was white and in frantic disarray, his receding hairline even with his ears. Squinting at them, he asked in a pleasant sort of way, “Can I help you?”
Epik sighed with relief. This shop felt like home. There was a familiar magic to it.
“I think so,” Epik said with a wondrous smile.
Later, they were still finding new things to marvel at in the tech mage’s shop.
“And this one?” Millie pointed to a small gadget on the desk.
The inventor smiled. He held it high, just next to his ear. “This, lass,” he said, cocking his head, “well, ah, you’ve heard of the phonograph, I’m sure. The box over there with the horn—it plays music.”
Millie gave a slight nod. “Sure,” she said, smiling along with her lie.
Epik had seen a similar contraption in the Grand Sovereign’s castle, but he knew little about it.
“This device here is a portable version. I call it the mobile-phono. And I have a feeling it’s going to really catch on with your crowd,” he said to them. “Ya know, the kids.”
“I’m a halfling,” Epik said.
“Are you really?” The old man slipped the red monocle down and peered at Epik.
They had gained some knowledge of the inventor. His name was Eddis Thomason. He was a tech mage—a wizard who imparts tiny fragments of magic into inventions of all manner and variety. The mobile-phono was but one of many inventions of his making. There were two boxes connected by a cable strung across the room between them. There was a box of whatsits he called batteries with a sign that read “Free of Charge.” Next to the box was the invention the batteries magicked—a glass bulb with a glowing stick inside.
Eddis set the mobile-phono down.
“I hope you understand,” he said. “It’s just, I have all my babies here in my shop. And honestly, I’m too old to go off and fight a war. Though, I must add, I’m not too fond of that Grand Sovereign fellow. If you see anything in the shop you like, it’s yours—my contribution to the cause.”
“Anything?” Millie was like a kid in a candy store. This, of course, reminded Epik that she was a child inside what was essentially a magical candy store. He remembered having a similar feeling in his father’s old shop.
“Anything!” Eddis smiled.
Millie scanned each shelf, in search of something worthwhile. Epik stayed with Eddis. He still had questions he wanted answered.
“Can I ask how you’ve remained hidden for so long? The Grand Sovereign, he’s never—”
The hidden alley door crashed open with a bang. Brick and mortar spilled across the shop floor.
A broad-shouldered man in black leered through the threshold. He was flanked by soldiers of King’s Way. His skin was pale, and a nasty pink scar ran the length of one cheek. At the at the sight of Epik, the man smiled nastily, revealing generous gaps between his four front teeth.
“May I help you?” Eddis asked with a lot more skepticism than before.
The man in black ducked through the crumbling doorway.
He paid Eddis no mind at all.
“Aren’t we lucky?” he gloated to the soldiers. “Not only will we capture the tech mage, but we’ve gone and found the outlaw halfling.” He regarded Epik. “Oh, my master will be pleased when I send him your head.”
“People do that?” Millie asked, appalled. “Send heads around by post? Isn’t that a bit… I dunno… messy?”
The man noticed the girl for the first time, and probably because of the sincerity in her tone, he answered her. “No,” he said. “I imagine it would be. I’ll be taking this one myself—and claiming the reward. Kill the halfling. We’ll bring the girl and the old man with us.”
The troops rushed in. And for the second time in quick succession, Millie surprised the man in black. She dispatched the first troop with a stunning spell. He fell to the ground with a Thud!
Had this been a few short months before, Epik’s reaction would have been different. He might’ve vanished before the fight, or if not, he very well might have lost.
But not today.
Epik found the well of emotions inside him and reached for the right one. There was no reason to hurt these men. They were just doing their jobs.
Briefly, he wondered why—why this job? Was it for coin? Did they like to fight—to kill? Maybe it had good benefits.
Pretty soon, they wouldn’t know either. Epik bound his magic with the emotion and flicked his wand. And one by one, the will to fight sputtered and died from the inside. They dropped to the floor dazed and confused—well, all except their black-clad leader.
“Is that all you’ve got?” He grinned. “I heard tell that you didn’t like to take lives. I thought it was surely codswallop. I see I was mistaken.”
The man reached for his waist and Epik expected a sword. But from a small scabbard, wooden and thin
, about the length of a shoe, the man triumphantly brandished—
“A wand?” Epik heard himself ask.
A jet of fire erupted from the tip directly at Epik. The halfling rolled away for a narrow miss. But the fire caught the back wall of the shop and spread, enveloping the neighboring shelves.
Millie, already poised to fight, sent another stunning spell. He parried it with a short flick of his wand. Shelves smashed down from the walls in every direction as though rocked by invisible explosions.
Behind Millie, Eddis cowered. The old man might have vast stores of magic inside him, but he wasn’t trained to employ it. It was only luck of a sort that enabled tech mages to imbue magic into their inventions. He skittered backward, then began a fruitless attempt to save his creations from the fire.
Epik racked his brain for something—anything to drive away this new mage. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he yelled.
“I know! That’s the beauty of it.”
The man in black shot another spell. This time, Millie and Eddis flew back, and were pinned to the wall by an invisible force. Fire inched toward them, licking the walls, crackling with heat. Smoke began to fill the small shop, making it hard for Epik to aim his wand, not to mention making it harder and harder to breathe.
“Actually,” Epik said. “I meant them.” He nodded toward Eddis and Millie who the man in black had so conveniently moved out of his way. The mage had only a second to realize his folly.
The halfling bound his best emotion, his love for his friends, his love for Kavya, with everything he knew about strength. White light erupted from the tip of his wand. The mage was thrown backward like he’d been hit by a ton of bricks, literally, because his body crashed through the building across the alleyway. Then the building collapsed on top of him.
“We should go,” Epik said. Millie and Eddis regained control just in time. The old man snatched up the mobile-phono from the worktable and followed them into the alley.
The brisk cold outside was a stark contrast to the heat of the flames. Eddis turned and looked at his workshop one last time. Then he frowned and said, “Could you tell me more about the proposal again? Ya know, the one where I come along with you and fight…”
4
A Discovery of Witches
The next morning, like many mornings since the magic inside him unlocked, Epik woke with a start. He blinked blearily, adjusting to pale morning light. Though no shard of sunlight penetrated the drawn curtains, the small room was a bluish gray from the sun’s devilish rays peeking in from between the cracks of the door and through the ceiling that was also the floor of an upstairs parlor.
The room was bare. Apart from the bed, there was a small nightstand and a rocking chair a few feet from the fireplace. A dwindling fire snapped, crackled, and popped. Reddish embers glowed faintly from behind charred wood.
The fire reminded Epik of the one from the day before, and he hoped that Eddis was comfortable in his new space—a room down the hall.
Epik pulled the covers higher, to his chin. He twisted in the sheets, searching for warmth. The sound of Kavya’s light breathing in his left ear made him forget his new friend. Curling to that side to greet her, he smiled a cheery morning smile until a set of cold toes brushed against his right calf. Which, come to think of it, wasn’t right at all.
“You had the dream again—the one with the dragon.” It was a statement, not a question. And the statement was uttered in a voice much like fingernails against a chalkboard.
“Not again,” Epik moaned. He scooted closer to Kavya. The cold foot on his calf remained there. “Seriously, what are you doing in here again?”
“I’m old,” the old woman said matter-of-factly. “And if you haven’t noticed, it’s cold. Do you expect me to sit in the rocker and wait for you to wake up?”
“No,” Epik replied, “I expect you to find something else to do.”
The old witch removed her feet. Epik was able to breathe again. But now that he was awake—quite awake—he climbed across the bed, around Kavya, and slid to the floor.
To her credit, the former slave girl kept her eyes closed, chuckling softly at the exchange. Epik brushed her cheek with a kiss. He knew full well she was awake.
“My time’s pretty open,” Schmilda the witch countered. “I’ve done everything I ever wanted to do in this life, and more. But I won’t just sit and wait for death. Death comes for the willing. And I won’t ever be willing.”
“So, all the sitting you do at the kitchen table,” Epik started, “that’s for—”
“Sitting and thinking go hand and hand—that’s why we sit.”
“And drink coffee,” Epik offered.
“Well, of course, the magic bean of life. We sit, and we drink, and we think.”
Epik put on pants over his long boxer shorts, then a light jacket over his undershirt. “For your information,” he said, “I had a different dream last night. This one had Gerdy in it. She was moved to a dungeon.”
“Hmph,” Schmilda hmphed. “I prefer dragons. Dungeons just give me the creeps.”
“Creeps—yeah,” Epik said sardonically, “that’s something you know all about.”
Kavya hiccupped a laugh, then rolled over and feigned sleep again.
Schmilda gave Epik a hard look. “I’ll let that one go. For now.”
A thin woman, her short gray hair curled in ringlets—by dint of pink curlers. Epik knew this because she had carelessly left some buried in the tousled fray. Epik could make out two just now, though he suspected the existence of more.
Like her bony frame, Schmilda’s features were all thin—her nose, her lips, and her cheeks. Her chin was barely a chin at all. She made up for her frailty with attitude. Well, that was what she called it. Nastiness was the word that came to everyone else’s mind.
The witch sat up and scooted against the headboard. “Epik, do you think what you see in these dreams is truth? Or are they visions of what might be?”
“Isn’t that why I’m here? To find out—to get those answers from you?”
“Nope! Answers are cheap.” Schmilda shook her head. “You’re here to learn to find them for yourself. I’ll ask again. Are these visions?”
She sounded rather mystical, a lot like Gabby—er, his father—would get when discussing magic. Epik pondered the question. “The dragon dream,” he said, “probably a vision. It’s something that might happen but might not. The dream, last night? It was real.”
“And how do you know that?”
“A feeling.”
“And here I thought you weren’t learning things.” Schmilda inched out of bed.
So he was right. The dream wasn’t a dream. He could remember it all—the guard’s hands on his—no, Gerdy’s—wrists. He had heard the barking that was Sir Wallack’s laugh, and even felt the magical presence of the Grand Sovereign somewhere in the castle. Somehow, the old wizard was gaining power once again, despite Epik’s crusade to prevent it.
Epik followed Schmilda out to the kitchen, leaving Kavya to rise when she was ready to pursue the day, usually around an hour after Epik was up.
The sun shone brightly through the kitchen windows. Epik could see nothing but snow and the barn where Buster was stabled, a good distance from the cottage.
It wasn’t a treacherous journey to reach the Coven, and finding them had proven difficult—even with Kavya’s magic. Stories of the witches were heard across the realm, in taverns occasionally, but mostly in the bedtime tales of children. These tales were passed from mother to child and through generations. Some were true, some had truth in them, and some claimed the sky was green.
The witches were mostly famous, collectively and as individuals for their good deeds—protecting a princess from the enchanted spindle of a spinning wheel, singing to munchkins, prophesying greatness to a king. But there were other stories. These shed a different light on the Coven—poisoning apples, turning a town’s children into rodents, transfiguring the occasional brat into kindling, and
these stories had some truth as well.
Success came when Kavya gifted Epik some of her magic. Then Epik sensed the three wielders so close together.
When they came across the cottage, Epik was relieved it didn’t stand on chicken feet—a story his own mother had told often.
Getting through their enchantments, knocking on their door, and proving to the witches Epik’s worth would fill up a storybook in its own right. But he did it. And the Coven allowed Epik, Kavya, Millie, and the twins inside their home. They offered magical tutoring, for they knew the fate of the realm was at stake.
Over the course of the next months, their number had grown by three more children, and now Eddis, to whom Schmilda had taken a liking to immediately. She had offered him a midnight snack while Millie and Epik were sent to bed with their tummies grumbling.
“Now,” she said, taking the pot of coffee and pouring herself a cup, “Eddis told me about last night, but I need your account. Every detail—don’t leave out a thing.”
Epik left out a few parts he knew she wouldn’t like.
“Liar.” She gulped her coffee. Her mouth and throat had to be used to the boiling heat because the grimace was directed at Epik. “I know full well what you did to those soldiers last night.”
“They attacked us,” Epik protested.
“Then attack back,” she scolded. “That spell you do, it’s powerful—too powerful. It uses too much magic. How are you supposed to fight the evilest wizard ever to walk the realm if you ain’t got any magic left?”
Epik shrugged. He knew breaking the soldiers will to fight cost him a good deal of magic. “You’re right.”
“I knows I’m right.” She plunked her coffee down.
The kitchen table was set for four. There were always four coffee cups by the pot, all chipped and worn with age. But there were only three witches. When Epik had asked about the fourth, Schmilda put the cup in the cabinet above the stove without a word. The next day it was set out again, and Epik dared not ask again.
“Now, let’s discuss more important matters,” Schmilda said. “Like how does Eddis like his oats? I’m not big on sugar, meself, but I could probably scrounge up some in a pinch.”
Sight Beyond Epik Sight: A Steampunk Fantasy Romp (Epik Fantasy Book 3) Page 2